With a hunger strike lasting 66 days, Khader Adnan, a Palestinian baker from the village of Arabeh in the West Bank, successfully undermined the seemingly incontestable system of administrative detention in Israel and revealed the injustice of secret evidence. Administrative detention, a form of punishment in which a person can be detained on the basis of secret evidence and held in prison without charge, is based on three sources of law: Military Order No. 1591 Regarding Administrative Detention – 2007 that applies in the West Bank; the Emergency Powers (Detention) Law - 1979 that applies in Israel; and the Internment of Unlawful Combatants Law - 2002. Most administrative detentions are imposed in accordance with Order No. 1591, which authorizes any military commander to incarcerate Palestinians from the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) for a period of six months, which can then be extended for additional periods of time by the military courts.

In many countries, administrative detention is only used in exceptional and extreme circumstances. In these cases, while the state admits that it lacks sufficient evidence to substantiate a charge against the individual, it nonetheless denies the individual rights guaranteed in criminal proceedings and holds these individuals in prison for fear that some danger might materialize in the future (Appeal of Administrative Detention 1/82 - Kawasmeh v. Minister of Defense, PD 36(1) 666). Contrary to the approach of employing administrative decision as an extraordinary measure, Israel has made extensive use of this method of punishment and has detained thousands of Palestinians without submitting criminal indictments against them or bringing them to trial. Currently, 310 Palestinians are held in administrative detention by Israel, and some have spent years in prison without being able to defend themselves against any charge.

Israeli courts at all levels have been unwilling to offer an effective remedy to administrative detainees. When appeals have reached the Israeli Supreme Court, they are almost summarily rejected. In doing so, the Supreme Court determines that the state’s security would be threatened if the detainee was placed on criminal trial and the administrative detention was not carried out (see e.g.: Appeal of Administrative Detention 4130/09 John Doe v. State of Israel, decision issued on 26 May 2009). These decisions, of course, are always based on “secret evidence,” which the court has determined would cause severe and irreparable harm to the work and sources of the Israeli security forces if it were to be revealed.

On 8 January 2012, almost a month after his arrest, an administrative detention order was issued against Khader Adnan for a period of four months. The Military Court approved the order on 7 February 2012, and on 13 February 2012, the Military Court of Appeals rejected the appeal against the order. Khader Adnan began a hunger strike toward the end of the investigation period in protest against the humiliating treatment by the Shin Bet investigators against him, and continued with his hunger strike for the next 66 days.

On 21 February 2012, an appeal was submitted to the Supreme Court against the Military Appeals Court’s decision to approve his detention. Immediately before the hearing, Khader Adnan's attorney and the State Prosecutor’s Office issued a joint announcement stating that so long as no new and significant material was added to Adnan’s case, the administrative detention would not be extended beyond 17 April 2012. In these circumstances, the Supreme Court did not hear the case or need to issue a decision, and Khader Adnan ended his hunger strike.

The welcome outcome was not then the result of a court ruling. Rather, the long hunger strike, which posed a real threat to Khader Adnan’s life, ended only thanks to his power of survival, the campaigns led by local and international human rights organizations, and the demonstrations and solidarity hunger strikes held in various cities in Israel, Palestine, and around the world. The hunger strike inspired responses from the highest levels in the international community, with European Union (EU) High Representative Catherine Ashton stating that she was “following with great concern reports about the deteriorating health condition of Khader Adnan, a Palestinian held in administrative detention in Israel” and reiterating "the EU’s longstanding concern about the extensive use by Israel of administrative detention without formal charge.”

Without the growing protests or attention by the international community, it is very doubtful that the State Prosecutor’s Office would have made such a statement in Khader Adnan’s case. Given that the courts regularly approve administrative detentions based on secret evidence, there is no reason to believe that the Supreme Court would have intervened and cancelled Khader Adnan's administrative detention order even if it had had the opportunity to deliberate the petition fully.

And so, despite the ultimately positive result in Khader Adnan's case, it remains that the fate of about 310 administrative detainees is determined by a shady and inaccessible domain – the kingdom of secret evidence – with only the Shin Bet (General Security Services, Shabak) holding the keys.

The secret evidence "tool" is also extensively used against the 4,300 prisoners and detainees categorized as “security prisoners” by Israel. Though security prisoners regularly submit petitions to improve the conditions of their imprisonment or to defend against the violation of their rights, the courts systematically reject their petitions on the basis of secret evidence. Consequently, year after year, these prisoners are precluded from meeting with their families: they are refused visits from relatives who are not members of their immediate family, and family members from Gaza cannot visit at all; they cannot conduct telephone conversations with their families; and they cannot have conjugal visits with their wives (Administrative Petition (District-Nazareth) 54950-11/11 Walid Dakka v. Israel Prison Service (decision issued on 15 February 2012). Their hands and feet are bound during visits and when receiving medical treatment in hospitals, the television channels they are allowed to watch are restricted, as are the newspapers and books they are allowed to read, and so on and so forth. All of this is based on secret evidence, with no real possibility of refuting or defending against it in court.

However, while petitioning the court may not be the most effective path, we now see (for a change) that a new path exists: the personal struggle of one man, together with broad local and international solidarity, overcame the kingdom of secret evidence.

The agreement achieved in Khader Adnan’s case still upholds the period of administrative detention stipulated in the original order issued against him (four months, including the days of his detention from the period of the criminal investigation), but it secures his release. We hope that on the agreed date, which happens to be Palestinian Prisoner’s Day, 17 April 2012, Adnan Khader will indeed be released and that the Shin Bet will not “reveal” any new “secret evidence” at that time.

[This article was originally published in Volume 90 of Adalah’s Newsletter, February 2012.]

“Spectacle and political power in Egypt”
The military's responses to recent unrest shows it is learning to use manipulate events to its own political advantage.

“The Arab media paradox”
Despite the general Arab decline in the press freedom rankings, the region’s media have, in many ways, actually become freer, argues Khaled Diab.

“The CSF Riots Anniversary and the enemy within”
Zenobia looks into the CSF rioting of 1986.

“The Brotherhood and Gulf security”
Al-Qassemi discusses the Gulf’s fears of the Muslim Brotherhood exporting the revolution East and regional initiatives to normalize relations with the organization. 

“Political figures, lawmakers reject FJP proposal for constituent assembly”
Key political figures object to election criteria set out by the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party which gives parliament significant control over choice of members for the constituent assembly

 “Of patriotism and pyramid schemes” 
Al Malky’s take on the “Egyptian Aid” schemes following US NGO crisis threats to cut aid.

“Activists testify in virginity tests case, verdict expected March 11”
The virginity test trials continue, as activists and journalists are allowed to testify in court in support of Samira Ibrahim. 

“In Translation: “Between Revolutionary and Foolhardy,” Ezzedine Shukri Fishere, al-Tahrir, 19 February 2012”
A translation of Fishere’s piece criticizing the tendency of part of the revolutionary forces to make unreasonable decisions, especially concerning important issues such as putting forward a presidential candidate.

“Islamists, secularists set to clash over who pens constitution”
Tensions in the parliament intensify, as disagreements over the make-up constituent assembly surface. 

“An Eritrean refugee talks about being tortured in Sinai – video”
Mogos Redae was tortured by smugglers in the Egyptian Sinai region for nine months until his family sold their homes to raise enough money to secure his release – $14,000. 

“Hosni Mubarak's mafia ending”
Ahdaf Soueif reflects on the meaning Mubarak’s trial has taken: a distraction or a call for justice?

“Porn storm reveals cleft in Egypt attitudes”
Alastair Beach comments on the controversy over Al-Nour Party’s proposal to ban pornography.

“In Egypt, reporting raises suspicion of foreigners”
Amid heightened xenophobia in Egypt, an otherwise normal government interview is thwarted by spokesman's suspicion of foreign press.

“The next fight in Egypt and Tunisia will be among the Islamists”
Kinninmont predicts the fracturing of Islamist parties as a result of internal tensions.

“Egypt’s Judges in a Revolutionary Age”
Nathan Brown discusses the implication of proposed legislation to guarantee the independence of the Egyptian judiciary and its effect on the cohesion of the state

Book Reviews: 
The Struggle for Egypt: From Nasser to Tahrir Square. By Steven Cook. And Liberation Square: Inside the Egyptian Revolution and the Rebirth of a Nation. By Ashraf Khalil.

“Brotherhood denies McCain allegations it helped US NGO workers leave Egypt”
McCain thanks the MB for help on release of NGO workers, senior MB members react angrily.

“Egypt presidency polls slated for 23 May”
The Supreme Committee for Presidential Elections sets the date for Egypt’s presidential elections.

“Spanish court orders extradition of Mubarak associate”
Spain's National Court has ordered the extradition to Egypt of an associate of former President Hosni Mubarak.

“Muslim Brotherhood lawmaker: Arab Spring headed to Iran”
Zvi Bar'el’s take on the Brotherhood’s attitude towards Iran.

 “How Some Egyptian Christians Are Rediscovering Egypt”
The Big Pharaoh reflects on the raising political participation of Egyptian Christians and its historical connections.

“In Egypt, even the police want to reform the police”
Police unions await legalization, while former senior officers call for improving working conditions.

“Egypt's parliamentary hypocrisy”
Sarah Moussa questions the honesty of recent actions of the Muslim Brotherhood in the new Egyptian Parliament

 “Why the U.S. won’t cut military aid to Egypt”
Shana Marshall argues that Washington would not cut aid to Cairo because pressures of interest groups in the weapons business.

 “Debts closed in on Egypt man who died hanged in his jail cell”
The Egyptian revolution might have toppled Hosni Mubarak, but every day human tragedy of poverty stricken majority continues. 

 “Political powers divided on electing constituent assembly”
Disagreement in the Parliament over criteria for electing members of the constituent assembly continues.

 “Update: Egypt to restart NGO trial 8 March, Parliament to probe travel ban lifting”
The Parliament steps up its inquiry into the “foreign-funded” NGOs case.

“What went wrong? Egypt's secular parties assess Islamists' parliamentary triumph”
Liberal and leftist parties ponder reasons for electoral losses to their Islamist rivals in Egypt's first post-Mubarak parliamentary contests

“Parliament Review: Of the past and the future”
Sarah Carr gives an overview of the actions and discussions of the Egyptian Parliament  on corruption, the economy and recent slander cases.

“Egypt's cobra and mongoose” 
Robert Springborg looks into the relations between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian military.

“Egypt and the aid backlash: Lessons for the rest of the world”
Scot Long’s take on the foreign-funded NGO scandal in Egypt.

“The truth about Fayza” 
Khaled Fahmy looks at the foreign-funded NGO scandals and asks questions about the ulterior motives of the main players.

In Arabic:

“تقرير سرى عن مرشح توافقى”
In a “replica letter,” Alaa Al-Aswani writes on the danger of a “consensus candidate” for the presidential elections set-up by the military 

“منصور حسن: سأصوت لـ «نبيل العربى» إذا رشح نفسه للرئاسة”
Al-Tahrir newspaper quotes Mansour Hassan, the head of the Advisory Council of SCAF as saying he would vote for Al-Araby and suggest he might be the “consensus candidate” of the MB and SCAF

 “حقيقة الإسلاميين”
Samira Ibrahim’s criticism of the Islamists in power

 ""تفاصيل 8 قضايا يواجهها ضباط 8 أبريل: الإضراب “عدم انضباط” والشكوى “عصيان” والموبيل “جريمة””
AlBadil gives an overview of the charges against army officers who joined the protests at Tahrir on April 8

 “قانون الإخوان ينضم إلى قانون العسكر في حظر الإضراب"
.A criticism of the new draft law proposed in the Parliament to regulate labor strikes and protests

“الداخلية» تتراجع أمام «لحية الضباط» بعد انضمام «الرتب الكبيرة» لأصحاب اللحى | الدستور الأصلي”
.The article discusses the recent scandal over the pre-revolution ban on officers growing beard

“القرضاوي: دعمي الكامل لـ«أبو الفتوح» لأنه «بشوش» و«الأولى سنًا وخبرة”
.Qardawi endorses Abou Al-Fotouh as the “better candidate” for president

 “إذا أردت السياسة فعليـك بالاقتصاد”
Wael Gamal criticizes the continuation of the neoliberal economic direction set by Gamal Mubarak and the previous regime

Recent Jadaliyya Articles on Egypt:

Struggles That Fueled a Revolution

Debating Tactics: Remember to Ask, "What Works?"

The Uprisings Will be Gendered

New Texts Out Now: Nezar AlSayyad, Cairo: Histories of a City

Egypt's Judges in a Revolutionary Age

The Rhythms of Egypt's Revolutionaries

لا شيء يفنى أو يُخلق من عدم

وسط الاحتجاز السياسي العام، الذي يكتنف المسألة الوطنية السورية، وفي ظل تصريحات تصدر عن جهات مؤثرة في العمل السياسي المعارض، ترى أن التدخل الخارجي صار «الحل الوحيد» في سوريا، مع ما يعنيه ذلك من اعتراف صريح بخروج القضية من أيدي من ضحوا طيلة أحد عشر شهرا في سبيل انتصارها، التقى في القاهرة مهتمون بالشأن السوري العام يمثلون اتجاهاته المتنوعة، ليناقشوا ويتدارسوا خلال أيام ثلاثة أوضاع وطنهم من مختلف جوانبها، ويحددوا مواقفهم منها، والمفاهيم التي يجب تناولها من خلالها، وما آل إليه الصراع بين الشعب والسلطة من نتائج، وما سيقوم في وطنهم من أوضاع.

وكان الداعون، وجلهم من الذين نشطوا بين عامي 2000 و2007 في «لجان إحياء المجتمع المدني»، التي لعبت دورا مميزا في تلمس شروط ومتطلبات الانتفاضة السورية الراهنة، قد دأبوا، كمستقلين عن التنظيمات المعارضة القائمة، على بذل جهود حثيثة من أجل توحيد المعارضة، وعملوا طيلة قرابة ستة أشهر من عام 2011، وقبل فترة طويلة من تأسيس «المجلس الوطني السوري»، لتوحيد تنظيمي المعارضة الكبيرين في الداخل: «التحالف الوطني الديموقراطي» و«إعلان دمشق». لكن جهودهم فشلت، وبدلا من توحيد هذين الفريقين تم توحيد جزء من التحالف الوطني مع منظمات يسارية، بالأحرى يسراوية، لم تعرف يوما برغبتها في، أو بنشاطها من أجل هذه الوحدة، بل عرفت بالعكس:

بمحاولاتها شق أحزاب المعارضة بزعم أنها ليست ثورية ولا تطالب بإسقاط نظام حافظ الأسد، وتحول بالتالي دون انتقال البلاد إلى النظام الاشتراكي، الذي سيقوم بعده حتما، باعتبار أن الديموقراطية «برجوازية» وتخطاها التاريخ. بهذا التوحيد، وقع شطر المعارضة السورية إلى فسطاطين:

انتسب أحدهما - إعلان دمشق - إلى تنظيم نشأ في الخارج وبطلب منه سمي «المجلس الوطني السوري»، بينما قام في الداخل ما عرف بـ«هيئة التنسيق لقوى التغيير الديموقراطي»، التي تضم اليوم حزب الاتحاد الاشتراكي العربي الديموقراطي والتنظيمات اليسراوية إياها. وفي حين وطن «المجلس» نفسه أساسا حيث هو، في الخارج، عانت «هيئة التنسيق» من حال بطالة سياسية جدية في الداخل، بعد ما اكتسبه المجلس من طابع تمثيلي لدى السوريين. ثم، حين قررت التحرك، لم يفتح الله عليها بخطة أحسن من العمل على مطاردته من مكان إلى آخر، ومحاولة بناء علاقات خارجية موازية لعلاقاته المتشعبة. لذلك، انتهى الأمر إلى وضع بدا معه كأن الحراك الشعبي، لا قيادة له غير ما تبلور وسطه من لجان شبابية ومجتمعية تمثلها «التنسيقيات»، التي اسلم قسم كبير منها أمره إلى المجلس الوطني في الفترة التي أعقبت مباشرة تشكيله، ثم انفضوا تدريجيا عنه، وها هي الناطقة باسمه تبشر السوريين بأن حل قضيتهم لم يعد بيدهم، أو لم يعد من اختصاصهم أو وقفا على نضالهم، بل يرتبط بالتدخل العسكري الخارجي وحده، دون أن تعلمهم أن دول الغرب أعلنت جميعها رفض المشاركة فيه، وأنه لم يبق لهم من أمل في الحرية أو النجاة غير دخول قوات إمارة قطر العظمى إلى الصراع وحسمه لصالح الشعب الثائر!.

بدءا من قيام الجبهة الوطنية التقدمية عام 1972، تشكلت الحركة الوطنية السورية من تيارين كبيرين: تيار حزبي نشأ عن انقسامات عرفتها جميع التنظيمات التاريخية القائمة بعد قيام الجبهة، وتيار ثقافي انتمى معظم أعضائه إلى أحزاب، لكنه انفصل عنها بعد خلافات كبيرة مع سياساتها وقياداتها، وبعد أن كان قد بدا عمله أواسط الخمسينيات، مع دور الياس مرقص ثم ياسين الحافظ النقدي، والتأسيسي، الذي أكد على ضرورة تخلق رؤية ثقافية / معرفية مستقلة عن السياسي القائم في الأحزاب. وقد مارس حملة هذه الثقافة دورهم من خلال انتمائهم إلى قضايا وليس إلى تنظيمات، فظلوا مستقلين عن القراءات السياسية الحزبية المعتمدة وعن رهاناتها، الضيقة عموما، وحافظوا على موقف نقدي منها. هذا التيار الثقافي لعب دورا فائق الأهمية في محاولات تصحيح مسارات الأحزاب وتطوير هياكلها، وبلور قواسم مشتركة ضرورية لثلم التناقضات التاريخية والموروثة القائمة بينها، وفهم السياسة تحت حيثية «الشأن العام»، فحررها من الضيق الأيديولوجي والشللية من جهة، ومن سيطرة واحتكار قيادات حزبية ثم سلطوية جاهلة عموما.

كانت أعوام 2000 /2007 سنوات تعاون فعال بين هاتين الكتلتين، عملت الأحزاب خلالها وفق برامج وخطوات، اقترحت اللجان معظمها إن لم تكن جميعها، ووصلت ذروتها في وثيقة «إعلان دمشق»، التي كانت فكرة بلورتها اللجان وكتبت نصها الأصلي، قبل تقديمها إلى «التجمع الوطني الديموقراطي»، الإطار الذي احتضن أحزاب المعارضة منذ عام 1979. وعلى الرغم من تفاوت وعي ونشاط اللجان والأحزاب، الذي كان كبيرا في مسائل متنوعة، فإن الأخيرة أقرت بالنفع الذي جنته من التجربة، حتى أن الأستاذ حسن عبد العظيم، الأمين العام لحزب الاتحاد الاشتراكي العربي الديموقراطي قال لي ذات مرة عام 2003: إن حزبنا استعاد بفضل الحراك المدني أوضاعه التنظيمية وعدده الذي كان له عام 1964: عام الذروة من نشاطه وحضوره الشعبي. لكن الاعتقالات التي تركزت عام 2006 على نشطاء من المجتمع المدني، ثم الصراعات التي رافقت تأسيس تجمع «إعلان دمشق» وما نجم عنها، لعبت دورا مهما فيها من مشكلات وخلافات شخصية أساسا، كانا نقطة افتراق حقيقية في مجمل التطور اللاحق، ترتب عليهما أمران جوهريان:

- بروز دور الأحزاب في حقبة أولى على حساب دور اللجان، وغلبة الحراك الحزبي على حساب الحراك المدني. كما استعادت قيادات الأحزاب زمام المبادرة في العمل السياسي، الذي ما لبث أن تحول إلى عمل حزبي بالمعنى الضيق، في حين تراخى دور اللجان وتحول من دور تمارسه تجمعات ثقافية منظمة إلى دور مثقفين أفرادا تمت تسميتهم «المستقلين» أو»الشخصيات المستقلة»، بالنظر إلى رفض معظمهم الانتماء إلى أحد الفريقين المتصارعين على الساحة: «التجمع» و«الإعلان»، أو إلى ترك من انتمى منهم الفريق الذي تعاون معه، وعودته إلى العمل العام كمثقف مستقل.

- عودة العمل السياسي بعد انشقاقات إعلان دمشق إلى الانحدار وصولا إلى نقطة تقارب الصفر، بينما برز بالمقابل حراك شبابي، كان تأثره بفكر وروحية لجان المجتمع المدني واضحا، وكانت صلاته برموزها يومية.

أكد نشوب الانتفاضة مأزق وأزمة المعارضة الحزبية السورية، التي انقسمت في نهاية الأمر إلى تيارين سبق ذكرهما: خارجي يمثله المجلس الوطني، وداخلي تمثله هيئة التنسيق، وفي حين يرفض الأول رفضا قاطعا الإقرار بوجود أي فريق معارض إلى جانبه على الأرض السورية، ويطالب العالم بالاعتراف به كـ «ممثل شرعي ووحيد» للشعب السوري، ويريد لبقية المعارضة الانضمام إليه أو الانزواء جانبا، في تجربة يجب أن يقشعر لها منذ الآن بدن أي ديموقراطي، ليس فقط لأنها تستنسخ نظام الحزب الواحد في مستوى أشد انحطاطا بكثير من مستوى البعث، الذي كان قد وعدنا بالوحدة والحرية والاشتراكية قبل الاستيلاء على السلطة، فأتانا بما عايشناه وكابدنا الأمرين منه خلال نصف القرن المنصرم، بينما لا يعدنا السادة الجدد، الذين يجهل قسم كبير جدا من الشعب كل شيء عنهم، وما هي هويتهم الحقيقية، وطبيعة انتماءاتهم ولا يعرفهم كأشخاص، بأي شيء غير الحكي عن دولة مدنية تشي تصرفاتهم العملية بأنهم لن يقيموا أي مقوم من مقوماتها في الحياة السورية، وأن رهاناتهم تتعارض جذريا مع أي مطلب مدني أو ديموقراطي، يرفض الثاني القيام بأي جهد حقيقي للتوطن في الداخل باعتباره الفسحة الحاسمة، التي يدير الأول ظهره لها بصورة تكاد تكون تامة، ويفضل التوجه نحو الخارج، لمنافسته عليه، علما بأنه لن ينجح في تحقيق أي شيء فيه، إلا إذا كان يعتقد أن الخارج ساحة محايدة لا إرادة لها ولا تعرف كيف تصنع من تحتاج إليهم ويناسبونها!

تقول كتابات ومراسلات وتصريحات كثيرة أن الحراك الشعبي يجد اليوم نفسه دون تمثيل سياسي فاعل أو مؤثر أو مطابق أو حقيقي، وأن انزياحا خطيرا نشأ في ساحته بعد تأسيس المجلس ودخول الهيئة في منافسة عقيمة معه، وأن نتيجة ذلك كله كانت:

- تراجعا شديدا عرفه مطلب الحرية كمطلب جامع اتحد السوريون حوله وبفضله. - بروزا حثيثا لطابع طائفي، وسم تدريجا بعض مناطق الحراك، كانت السلطة وراءه وأرادت منه شق الشعب، وتحويل معركته ضدها إلى صراع فئوي وطائفي داخله وبين صفوفه. لم يفعل المجلس أي شيء للتصدي لهذا النزوع، بل إن بعض أطرافه شجعت أوساطا معينة على الانخراط فيه.

- وبروز النزوع إلى السلاح، والتنظير لإفلاس النزعة السلمية ولضرورة تبني العنف والانخراط في العسكرة.

- وأخيرا، وضع العمل الوطني أكثر فأكثر في يد أطراف حزبية مذهبية، مع أن الثورة بدأت مجتمعية ووطنية وتبنت أهدافا مناقضة لأية حزبية أو مذهبية.

هذه التطورات كانت جميعها مما يريده النظام، وقد لاقاها قطاع من المجلس في نشاطه أو لم يبذل أي جهد جدي لقطع الطريق عليها، وارتضى في النهاية العمل في إطارها والإفادة منها.

والخلاصة: بما أن نجاح الثورة يتوقف اليوم على تصحيح مساراتها السياسية، وعلى وجود تعبير عنها، وبما أن هذا التعبير لن يتجسد في تعبير حزبي أو جزئي، ولن يكون من صنع فريق بعينه، بل سيتمخض عن حراك مجتمعي واسع وحوار وطني متعدد الأطراف وصريح، وعن علاقات ودية وندية بين أطياف الشعب المختلفة وأطراف المعارضة المتنوعة، فضلا عن التمسك بالحقائق ونبذ الأوهام، واستعادة رهانات الثورة الشعبية الأصلية، وعلى رأسها الحرية والعدالة والوحدة الشعبية والمجتمعية والسيادة الوطنية واستقلال الدولة السورية، فإن «المنبر الديموقراطي السوري» لا يرى لنفسه مهمة أو عملا خارج هذه الأسس، ولن يغلب بأي حال وتحت أي ظرف أي تناقض ثانوي مع أي طرف في المعارضة على التناقض الرئيس مع النظام، وسيسعى، دون أن يكون تنظيما أو حزبا جديدا، إلى تنظيم عمل المستقلين ونشطاء المجتمع المدني في إطار ثورة المجتمع السوري الحالية، التي يريد نفسه رافدا من روافدها. وكما أنه لن يخوض معارك نافلة ولا لزوم لها، فإنه لن يحجم عن قول الحقيقة أو يتردد عن الدعوة إليها، بينما يقوم بدوره في توحيد الصوت الوطني وتعزيز وسائله وتحديد أهدافه، دون أي تمييز بين فريق وآخر أو مواطن وآخر، يدفعه إلى ذلك إيمانه بأن معركة الحرية في سوريا دانية القطوف، وأنه لا يجوز لأي جهة إضاعة أو تهديد أو إضعاف فرص كسبها لصالح الشعب، أي لصالح كل مواطن سوري وكل جماعة وطنية سورية، ما دامت الحرية وليس أي معيار آخر هي القيمة التي سيقيس المنبر من خلالها الجميع، ويعاين بواسطتها الأقوال والأفعال، والتي سيستخدمها لإقامة جماعة وطنية موحدة ومجتمع مندمج ومتماسك، ترعاه دولة تعبر عن إرادته العامة في صعيد السياسة العليا والعدالة والمساواة.

سيعمل المنبر على تحسين فرص الحراك في التعبير عن نفسه، وسيبذل جهودا صادقة كي يكون مصدر معرفة نزيهة بالحقائق والوقائع السورية والعربية والدولية، ويوطد ثقة السوريين بأنفسهم وبقضيتهم العادلة، لذلك، لن يضع نفسه في مواجهة أحد، أو يكون بديلا لأحد، وهو لا يفهم نفسه كتنظيم جديد رغم أنه يريد لعمل المستقلين أن يكون منظما ورفيع العائد. قال المنبر إنه رافد من روافد الثورة، وأقول الآن إنه يجب أن يكون إضافة تنفعها، وإلا فقد مسوغ وجوده واستمراره .

تبقى ملاحظة مهمة: إن أية محطة تلفاز خليجية، وهي جميعها «محبة» جدا لشعب سوريا، وراغبة في نشر الديموقراطية السائدة عندها في بقية ربوع الاستبداد العربي، لم تذع أي شيء عن تشكيل «المنبر الديموقراطي السوري»، بينما طنطنت وهللت لأي تشكل معارض يطالب بالتدخل العسكري الخارجي. 
تلك شهادة حسن سلوك سيعرف أعضاء «المنبر» كيف يقدرونها حق قدرها، في الصراع الدائر اليوم من أجل سوريا الديموقراطية، كما في صراعات المستقبل على هويتها.

كما ظهر الحديث عن المعونة الأمريكية «الاقتصادية» وضرورة الاستغناء عنها لحماية سيادة الدولة واستقلالية القرار الوطنى، هاهو يخبو بقرار سياسى. فهاهى مبادرات التبرع للمعونة المصرية تصبح بقدرة قادر لخدمة الفقراء فقط ولا علاقة لها بالمعونة. وهاهو جهاز الدعاية بصحفييه ومحلليه الاستراتيجيين يوقف مطالباته الساخنة بالاستغناء عن تلك الأموال التى كان يحصل عليها النظام المخلوع.

تزامن ذلك  مع حل قضية منظورة أمام القضاء عن تمويل خارجى لعدد من المنظمات الأجنبية وغير الأجنبية العاملة فى مصر بقرار سياسى أنهى سيناريو مواجهة مصنوعة بنهاية درامية رديئة حتى بالنسبة لمن كتبوها، وذلك في  دليل على ارتباط  لا ينكر بين الأمرين.  

لكن هناك ما يتبقى بعد أن انقشع غبار خطاب المؤامرة العالمية ومعركة العسكرى وحكومة الجنزورى مع عدو عالمى جبار، يخنق ثورة مصر بالتعاون مع عملاء داخليين. انقشع الغبار كاشفا عن أن هذا الخطاب محض امتداد لما سمعناه أثناء الثورة نفسها من رئيس المخابرات ثم نائب الرئيس آنذاك عمر سليمان عن الأيدى الخارجية، «التى تمول الاخوان المسلمين لخداع الشعب والسيطرة على البلاد»، لكن هناك الكثير من المسكوت عنه فى الجدل الذى حركه العسكرى وهو فى الحقيقة ما يتبقى لنا للتمعن فيه ودراسته والتحرك بشأنه.

1-ليست مواجهة جديدة

حلا للعسكرى وحكومته تصوير أن هناك اختلافا بينهما وبين الحكومة الأمريكية بسبب المواقف الرافضة للتدخل فى شئون مصر بعد الثورة، وأن الكونجرس يضغط بالمعونة. وكأن هذا النوع من الشد والجذب يحدث لأول مرة، أو أنه يرقى لمنطقة مراجعة العلاقة الاستراتيجية بين طبقتنا الحاكمة وبين حكام أمريكا. والحقيقة هى أن هذا الشد والجذب كان أمرا متكررا حتى فى ظل نظام مبارك الحليف، الذى لا شك فى انضباط سياسته الإقليمية والاقتصادية على ميزان توجهات الولايات المتحدة.

وفى مناسبات عدة، مورست ضغوط تخص المعونة الاقتصادية على نظام مبارك. فى 2004 مثلا، طالب أحمد نظيف فور توليه غرفة التجارة الأمريكية، أولى الجهات التى تحدث لها بعد توليه رئاسة الوزراء، بالتدخل لفك تجميد بعض أموال المعونة، ربطها الأمريكيون بإعلان خطة زمنية لخصخصة بنكين من البنوك العامة. 

وعلى مدى السنتين السابقتين للثورة، كانت هناك مفاوضات بين الحكومتين لإلغاء المعونة السنوية (تناقصت من حوالى نصف مليار دولار بأسعار التسعينيات إلى 250 مليونا الآن) من الأصل وتحويلها إلى صندوق استثمارى. وبالتالى إلغاء المعونة «الاقتصادية» كان على الأجندة أصلا بقبول الطرفين مما يجعل من التهديد بالاستغناء عنها، أو خوض معركة بشأنها، صراعا مصطنعا وغير ذى مضمون.

2-المعونة الاقتصادية 17٪ فقط من إجمالى المعونة 

 لقد تلقى حكام مصر من الأمريكيين، الذين احتلوا لسنوات طويلة موقعا متدنيا فى تصنيف المانحين من حيث الفوائد على الدول الممنوحة بسبب تسيس وتركز منحهم وضعف الفائدة منها للفقراء، 71.6 مليار دولار تجعل منهم ثانى أكبر متلق لها بعد إسرائيل. 40 مليارا من هذه الأموال كانت فى صورة معونة عسكرية، زادت نسبتها من اجمالى المعونة فى السنوات الأخيرة لتصل إلى 83٪ منها (1.3 مليار دولار) لتجعل من المؤسسة العسكرية بلا منازع أكبر متلق للتمويل الحكومى الخارجى المنتظم فى البلاد. وفى خضم الجدل حول استقلال القرار الوطنى، لم يشر أى من أطراف المواجهة العنيفة المزعومة لهذه الأموال، ولم يقترح أحد التخلى عنها لا بجمع التبرعات ولا بغيره.

وتقتصر التقديرات لفوائد المعونة الاقتصادية لبلادنا على بعض التقارير المقدمة للكونجرس، إذ لا يوجد تقدير حكومى معلن فى ذلك الأمر. وتقول بعض هذه التقارير إن 80٪ منها يعود مرة أخرى للولايات المتحدة وشركاتها وخبرائها. أما  المعلومات عن المعونة العسكرية، المعروفة تفصيليا للقيادة الأمريكية وفى بعض دوائر الكونجرس، ومن ثم إسرائيل، فلا تتوفر من الأصل لا للجهات التشريعية ولا لصناع القرار السياسى فى مصر.

3- الشروط لا تتعلق أساسا بالمجتمع المدني

فى 27 يوليو 2011، اجتمعت اللجنة الفرعية للاعتمادات الخارجية بمجلس النواب لمناقشة مخصصات العام المالى 2012. وبحسب دراسة لمركز أبحاث الكونجرس، 18 نوفمبر 2011 بعنوان مصر تتحول، فإن اللجنة اشترطت لاستلام كامل المعونة  «أن تستخدم المعونة العسكرية فى برامج تأمين الحدود والأنشطة فى سيناء مع توقع أن الجيش المصرى سيستمر فى الالتزام وتطبيق التزاماته الدولية، وبالتحديد معاهدة السلام المصرية الإسرائيلية». ويضيف الجزء 7042 من مشروع القرار اشتراط أن تشهد وزيرة الخارجية الأمريكية بأن مصر «لن يحكمها فصيل ارهابي  وأن مصر «ستستمر فى تدمير الانفاق على الحدود مع غزة» وان لا شيء من المعونة الاقتصادية يمكن ان يستخدم «فى تقليل أو إعادة جدولة أو الاعفاء من مديونية مصر لأمريكا».

وفى اجتماع للجنة الموازية فى مجلس الشيوخ فى 22 سبتمبر 2011 أضيف شرط بأن تشهد وزيرة الخارجية الأمريكية أن المساعدات «تدفع المصالح الأمريكية فى مصر وفى الاقليم».

بالإضافة إلى ذلك تتفاوض حكومة الجنزورى مع صندوق النقد الدولى على مدى الشهرين الماضيين حول قرض بقيمة 3.2 مليار دولار. وبينما يقول الطرفان إن القرض بلا شروط فإنهما يتداولان فى البرنامج الاقتصادى لمصر للسنوات القادمة ويتم تعديل بعض بنوده خلال النقاش كجزء من عملية الحصول على القرض. وهنا تجدر الإشارة إلى العلاقة العضوية بين السياسة الأمريكية والصندوق، ودفاع الأخير التاريخى عن نمط نمو يحكمه تحرير الأسواق وسيطرة القطاع الخاص وتحجيم الانفاق العام كشكل لا يمكن التنازل عنه للاقتصاد. يجدر أيضا القول إن الولايات المتحدة، وبعض المؤسسات الدولية الأخرى المرتبطة بنفس المصالح والمنهج، ربطت تعاونها مع مصر ما بعد الثورة باتفاق مصر مع الصندوق على البرنامج. بينما لم يناقش هذا البرنامج ولا فى خطوطه العامة فى البرلمان ولا أمام الرأى العام ناهيك عن أنه يلزمنا دوليا بتوجهات تفصيلية قاطعا الطريق على الحكومة المنتخبة فى تحديد توجهاتها وفقا لإرادة ومصالح من انتخبوها. بل تتعامل حكومة الجنزورى مع البرنامج كسر عسكرى بالرغم من أن تفاصيله النهائية متاحة للصندوق، الذى يتفاوض بشأنها على مصيرنا. فتبقى سرا عسكريا على المصريين فقط. 

هل يمكن أن نرفض المعونة ولا يتحدث أحد عن شروطها الاقتصادية والسياسية؟ وهل من المنطق أن يغفل الشيخ حسان وغيره الحديث عن المنهج والسياسة والمصالح المفروضة بها فنستغنى عن المال ونبقى على السياسات التى يدفعون لحكامنا من أجلها؟

4- صور أخرى لضخ الأموال الحكومية الأمريكية

ليست المعونة هى الشكل الوحيد للتدخل الحكومى الأمريكى فى اقتصاد مصر. ولا أتحدث هنا  عن أن المنظمتين الرئيسيتين، المعهد الجمهورى الأمريكى وبيت الحرية اللتين اتهمتا بالعمل دون ترخيص (كما يظهر من القضية وليس تقسيم مصر كما ادعى اعلام الحكومة) هما بريئتان من صفة المنظمات غير الحكومية. فهما تتلقيان تمويلا مباشرا من الكونجرس ولهما صلات مباشرة بالحزبين الحاكمين مما يجعلهما منظمات شبه حكومية أو حكومية غير رسمية، والصاق صفة المجتمع المدنى بهما هو محاولة للتعميم المقصود لتشويه منظمات مصرية عاملة فى حقوق الانسان لا تتلقى تمويلا أمريكيا بالمرة. وهو أمر يعطى حماس الإدارة الأمريكية للتدخل فى القضية بعدا غائبا هو أنها تتدخل دفاعا عن مؤسسات شبه حكومية تابعة لها وليس غراما فى عيون مؤسسات المجتمع المدنى المصرية. 

المهم هنا هو ما أعلنه التشريع الذى ناقشه الكونجرس فى 2011 عن تأسيس صندوق لدعم التحول الديمقراطى فى مصر وتونس بتمويل هدفه «دعم القطاع الخاص وحرية الأسواق» فى البلدين الثائرين. وتفتخر ديباجة مشروع القرار بأنه يأتى على غرار ما حدث فى مطلع التسعينيات فى دول أووبا الشرقية.

ليس هذا فقط، بل رصدت مؤسسة الاستثمار المباشر عبر البحار الحكومية الأمريكية OPIC  ٢  مليار دولار لمصر وتونس بالاتفاق مع الادارة الأمريكية، منها نصف مليار سيوجه للصناعات الصغيرة. وأعلنت المؤسسة بالفعل فى نوفمبر المضى عن توفير 150 مليون دولار لإحدى الشركات الاستثمارية المصرية عبر تسهيل ائتمانى فيما بررته  بالنص فى مطلع بيانها الصحفى قائلة: «تلقت الديمقراطية الوليدة فى مصر دفعة مهمة من مؤسسة الاستثمار المباشر عبر البحار، المؤسسة الأمريكية الحكومية لتمويل التنمية، عندما وافق مجلس إدارة المؤسسة على ضخ 150 مليون دولار فى قطاعات الاقتصاد الحيوية كالسلع الغذائية الاستهلاكية والتصنيع والخدمات المالية».

هل يمكن للمجلس العسكرى الذى يحكم البلاد وحكومته أن يخبرانا أى قانون ينظم هذا الدعم «الاستثماري» للديمقراطية؟ وهل يجب أن يخضع لرقابة جهات التشريع أم لا؟ ولماذا لم نسمع منكم كلمة عن هذه القروض الخارجية ذات الخلفيات السياسية والتى فى أحسن الأحوال قد ترسخ نمطا اقتصاديا، صار محل عدم اتفاق فى أحسن الأحوال فى بلادنا؟

لا لم ينته حديث المعونة وشروطها. بل هو فى الحقيقة يجب أن يبدأ. وهذه المرة يجب أن يتجاوز المعونة نفسها، والمعركة الوهمية التى شهدناها إلى ما ورائها من شروط ومصالح هيكلية لنعرف معا أيا منها يجب أن يبقى ومن يدفع فى اتجاهها ليس فقط من الخارج، وإنما بالأساس من يرسخونها  من الداخل بأيديهم وأسنانهم وأحزابهم وتليفزيوناتهم واستثماراتهم.

[عن جريدة ”الشروق“ المصرية] 

[This is the sixth part of a six-part series associated with a Jadaliyya roundtable discussing targeted killings . Participants include Richard Falk, Nathan Freed Wessler, Pardiss Kabriaei, Leonard Small, and Lisa Hajjar. Click here for the introduction to the roundtable.] 

The speech that Attorney General Eric Holder delivered on 5 March 2012 in which he outlined the Obama administration’s position on the legality of the targeted killing program exemplifies what I have described as “state lawfare.” One aspect of state lawfare, I argue, is the effort by officials “to frame otherwise clearly illegal practices as legal by contending that the laws that would prohibit them are inapplicable.” Holder evinces a heightened degree of self-consciousness about what he is doing in this regard when he states: “Some have called such operations ‘assassinations.’  They are not, and the use of that loaded term is misplaced. Assassinations are unlawful killings…[T]he U.S. government’s use of lethal force in self defense against a leader of al Qaeda or an associated force who presents an imminent threat of violent attack would not be unlawful — and therefore would not violate the Executive Order banning assassination or criminal statutes.” 

Lennie Small’s contribution to this roundtable begins with this very point. The relatively recent articulation of a distinction between “assassination” and “targeted killing,” Small argues, is legal and rhetorical rather than tactical, since both refer to “the lethal use of force in a surprise attack against an enemy or foe, whether by a sniper, a surgical-precision drone strike, or a magnetic bomb placed on a vehicle.” Like state lawfare-esque assertions by Bush administration officials and lawyers that interrogation tactics such as waterboarding are not torture (i.e., criminal offenses) if done for the worthy purpose of “keeping Americans safe,” Holder is now on the record arguing that extra-judicial executions are not assassinations (i.e., unlawful) if employed “to defend the United States through the appropriate and lawful use of lethal force.”

The concepts of “appropriate” and “lawful” are not nearly as seamless or complimentary as Holder would suggest. In fact, they raise two entirely different sets of issues, coming together only (and retrospectively) in the death-by-surprise of suspected enemies who are killed at times when they are not actively engaged in armed combat or any other form of active violence or aggression—that is, at times when they do not pose an imminent threat. Of course, it can be argued that “enemies” are dangerous even when they are off duty, lying in bed, drinking in a café, driving home, and so on. Carl Schmitt reminds us that in war, the “enemy” is he who poses an existential threat to the “friend.” Two years ago, I would not have pegged Holder—or Obama—as a Schmittian. But I digress. 

What, according to Holder (and the administration he serves and for which he speaks), constitutes “appropriate” use of lethal force? This includes “considerations of the relevant window of opportunity to act, the possible harm that missing the window would cause to civilians, and the likelihood of heading off future disastrous attacks against the United States.” Such considerations presume the existence of accurate intelligence to trigger the authorization for lethal force. Yet Holder says nothing about the inaccurate intelligence that has triggered fatal strikes against innocents. Indeed, there are no mistakes referenced in his speech. 

As for the “lawful” nature of US targeted killings, Holder cites the canonic laws of war—the Geneva Conventions—to assert that “any such use of lethal force by the United States will comply with the four fundamental law of war principles governing the use of force.” Those four principles are “necessity” (the requirement that the target has a definite military value); “distinction” (the imperative to distinguish between those who legally can be targeted intentionally—“combatants, civilians directly participating in hostilities, and military objectives”—and those whose deaths are accidental or, in the discourse of war, collateral damage); “proportionality” (a calculated but vague and subjective requirement that “the anticipated collateral damage must not be excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage”); and “humanity” (described by Holder as the requirement to “use weapons that will not inflict unnecessary suffering”). The subject of “unnecessary suffering” goes unnamed and unmourned in the speech. 

There is a more positive way to interpret Holder’s speech, but doing so requires a more hopeful disposition than I possess. The very fact that he publicly acknowledged a policy that has been largely shrouded in secrecy and buttressed by denials is a hopeful sign, if for no other reason than the possibility of signaling what Richard Falk suggests: that the time is ripening for a national debate. Yet my dear, optimistic friend Falk—who resiliently believes that people armed with good information can be inspired to do good things, and who accurately chides me for “refraining from advocacy” in the tenor I adopt in criticizing the targeted killing policy—offers a metanarrative within which one can read Holder’s speech and the Obama administration’s policy: “[I]n the domains of national security, the use of armed force, and criminal accountability for gross crimes, international law operates according to an imperial logic, or at best a hegemonic logic, in which equals are not treated equally.” Holder’s speech is an articulation of the logic of American power and geopolitical realities; there is no referent other than the US government, its laws, and American public opinion. 

I thought about that “imperial” or “hegemonic” logic as I read and reread the text of Holder’s speech, wondering who he was trying to persuade. Clearly, he had several audiences in mind, but all of them American. To the hawks (chicken and other), he offered a reassuring acknowledgment that “[w]e are a nation at war.” He offered bland reassurances to civil libertarians, too: “But just as surely as we are a nation at war, we also are a nation of laws and values.” To the military commission enthusiasts in Congress who have worked to circumscribe the Obama administration’s executive discretion on where and how to prosecute suspects, he chastised that “far too many choose to ignore [that] the previous Administration consistently relied on criminal prosecutions in federal court to bring terrorists to justice.” To the Islamophobes, he nourished their desire for harsh treatment of (Islamic) enemies foreign and domestic, rationalizing and owning up to current policies of surveillance racial profiling at home and targeted killing abroad by stating that “there are people currently plotting to murder Americans, who reside in distant countries as well as within our own borders.”

What about those Americans, like Nathan Freed Wessler and Pardiss Kebriaei (and their colleagues at the ACLU and CCR), who are advocates for the international rule of international law? Falk has suggested describing what they and their like-minded colleagues do as constructive lawfare, as distinguished from state lawfare. Personally, I prefer to appropriate and monopolize the term “lawfare” (without the qualifier “constructive”), imbuing it with meaning to refer to—indeed, to colonize the concept in order to make positive reference to—“litigation to challenge military and security policies and practices; and efforts to sue or prosecute state agents, government-funded contractors, and corporations who are alleged to have engaged in or abetted serious violations of law in the conduct of war.” 

Wessler and Kebriaei are actual, literal, invested advocates for the rule of law. As they explain in their contributions to this roundtable, they have litigated cases and issues connected with the targeted killing policy. They are humble, focused, attentive to precedent and hopeful about the principle of judicial review. But make no mistake, the battle for the future of law and war, national security and human rights will be waged—at least in part—by lawyers (like them) in courts, here and abroad. Lawyers, I have found, are not the best assessors of their own contributions to larger struggles. 

Schooled in the adversarial model, lawyers tend to “think like lawyers” in terms of “wins” and “losses” as determined by court rulings. But—and here is why I love “lawfare” as I interpret it (Falk would characterize what I love as “constructive lawfare”)—the value of litigation to protect or expand deep and hard-fought principles of international/global value (e.g., the right not to be tortured, the right to life and due process) cannot be assessed definitively by the immediate outcomes of cases. The brand of lawfare that Wessler and Kebriaei represent will be important in the future, perhaps even more than at present, as a record of resistance to inhumanity and dehumanization. Like the long struggles against slavery and de jure racism, those who fight these fights today will be remembered tomorrow for being on the right side of history. And sometimes, when you fight you win.

Jadaliyya Roundtable on Targeted Killings:

Part I: Jadaliyya Roundtable on Targeted Killing: Introduction

Part II: A Meditation on Reciprocity and Self-Defense in Relation to Targeted Killing

Part III: Lawyering and Targeted Killing

Part IV: The Need for Judicial Review of US Targeted Killing Practices

Part V: The Secret Bureaucracy of Targeted Killing

[This is the fifth part of a six-part series associated with a Jadaliyya roundtable discussing targeted killings . Participants include Richard Falk, Nathan Freed Wessler, Pardiss Kabriaei, Leonard Small, and Lisa Hajjar. Click here for the introduction to the roundtable.] 

Three US citizens were killed in Yemen in 2011 by drone strikes carried out under the auspices of the government’s targeted killing program. They were neither charged with any crime nor brought before a judge. The killings were carried out by the executive branch acting alone, with no oversight from the courts and no public presentation of evidence. At least two more US citizens are reportedly on government “kill lists,” along with numerous alleged terrorism suspects of other nationalities. As long as they remain on the lists, they, too, can be killed with no warning, no meaningful due process, and no oversight.

The US government’s claim of authority to carry out targeted killings around the world, far from active battlefields and without external checks, is momentous, but there is little public information about the details of its targeted killing program. Much of what is available consists of anonymous leaks to the press by government officials. Recently, President Obama publicly acknowledged the targeted killing program and a few details about it. Yet when faced with calls for further transparency, the US government continues to refuse to officially disclose details about the policy of targeted killings abroad.

In her essay titled “Lawfare and Targeted Killing,” Lisa Hajjar explains that one aspect of the US government’s efforts to ensure “legal immunity” for its targeted killing program “derives from the clandestine nature of these operations and the invocation of states secrets.” The government has deployed this reasoning as a shield against litigation challenging the targeted killing program in two contexts. First, the government invoked the “state secrets privilege,” a doctrine designed to protect classified information, to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) asking a court to place limits on the government’s authority to target and kill US citizen Anwar al-Aulaqi. Second, the government used similar reasoning to oppose two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits brought by the ACLU seeking information about the scope, legal rationale, and factual basis of the targeted killing program. Although the government asserts that its targeted killing program remains “clandestine,” that claim is belied by the repeated official statements lauding the targeted killing program in public.

Obama’s Public Acknowledgment

On 30 January 2012, President Obama took questions on a live internet video forum organized by Google+ and YouTube. He acknowledged that the US carries out targeted killings using drones in Pakistan, that it targets persons who are on a list of “active terrorists,” and that it goes after “al-Qaeda suspects.” He also asserted that the program is “kept on a very tight leash” and claimed that “drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties.” Other US government officials have also made public remarks about aspects of the targeted killing program. In a January appearance on national television, for example, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta acknowledged that the US can and does carry out targeted killings of US citizens pursuant to the president’s authorization. In February, Defense Department general counsel Jeh Johnson asserted in a public speech that the government can pursue suspected terrorists “without a geographic limitation” and that “US citizens do not enjoy immunity” from targeted killing. Last June, President Obama’s counter-terrorism advisor, John Brennan, implausibly asserted that the US targeted killing program had not caused “a single collateral death” in the preceding year. Just this week, Attorney General Eric Holder outlined the legal authority under which the government claims it can target and kill US citizens overseas.

In one sense, the president’s discussion of targeted killing was unremarkable because it provided no new information. The press has long reported on the CIA’s and US military’s targeted killing programs, often based on statements of “anonymous” government officials, and the publicly reported information far outstrips the tidbits disclosed by the president and other administration officials. The press has reported, for example, that the US has carried out targeted killings using drones in a number of countries, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. We know that the CIA and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) maintain separate lists of people who the agencies have authority to hunt down and kill. Reports have described the secret bureaucratic process by which names are placed on the lists. And several organizations maintain running tallies of the number and location of drone strikes and the numbers of civilians killed. The US government’s targeted killing program is hardly a secret.

Yet, the President’s statement marked the first time he officially acknowledged, in an attributed statement, that the CIA carries out targeted killings by drone in Pakistan and that the agency maintains a kill list for that purpose. When directly confronted, the government has stubbornly maintained the fiction that the very existence of the CIA’s targeted killing program is a state secret and that basic information about the military’s program cannot be revealed.  

Public Killings, “Secret” Program

On 30 September 2011, Anwar al-Aulaqi, a US citizen who reportedly had been placed on the government’s kill lists, was executed in a joint CIA-JSOC drone strike in Yemen.  Another US citizen, Samir Khan, died in the same attack. Two weeks later, al-Aulaqi’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Aulaqi—also a US citizen—and his 17-year-old Yemeni cousin were killed in a military drone strike elsewhere in Yemen. Although the president and other members of the administration claimed credit for their success in killing al-Aulaqi, they have refused thus far to provide an account of the legal basis on which they assert the power to kill US citizens suspected of involvement in terrorism. They also have failed to present any evidence justifying al-Aulaqi’s targeting, except to vaguely assert that he “took the lead in planning and directing efforts to murder innocent Americans.”

Although the Obama administration has been eager to use the death of al-Aulaqi and its broader targeted killing program to bolster its counterterrorism credentials, the US government has responded to litigation seeking accountability and transparency with broad claims of secrecy. In early 2010, the ACLU filed a FOIA request seeking disclosure of the legal basis for the government’s use of drones to conduct targeted killings overseas, as well as data regarding the number of civilians and non-civilians killed in the strikes. In response, the CIA flatly refused to confirm or deny the existence or nonexistence of any such records, claiming that even the fact that a targeted killing program exists cannot be acknowledged.  

Later in 2010, the ACLU and CCR filed a lawsuit on behalf of al-Aulaqi’s father asking the court to force the US government to reveal the criteria it used to place al-Aulaqi on the kill lists and to prevent the government from using lethal force away from an active battlefield except in situations where a person poses an imminent or immediate threat of injury to others, as required by US and international law. To date, the government has neither explained whether it abides by this imminence standard nor offered evidence that al-Aulaqi actually posed an imminent threat. In response to the lawsuit, the government asserted the state secrets privilege, claiming that information about the targeted killing program was so secret that the whole lawsuit must be dismissed to avoid risking disclosure of classified information. The court dismissed the case on separate national security-related jurisdictional grounds.

Shortly after al-Aulaqi was killed, the New York Times published a detailed description, based on information from those ubiquitous anonymous government officials, of a secret memorandum by the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) providing the US government’s legal justifications for targeting al-Aulaqi. The story resulted in calls from across the political spectrum to release the actual memo or officially and publicly explain its legal reasoning. When the government failed to make public its legal arguments for the targeted killings of its own citizens, the ACLU submitted a new FOIA request seeking disclosure of the OLC memo, information about the process by which the administration adds Americans to kill lists, the evidentiary basis for targeting al-Aulaqi, and the factual basis for the killings of the other two US citizens. After the OLC and CIA baldly refused to confirm or deny whether any such memo or other relevant document even exists, the ACLU filed suit. (The Times also filed a FOIA lawsuit seeking the OLC memo.)  Both lawsuits are currently pending in US federal courts.

The Need for Transparency

The US government has claimed a chilling and far-reaching power to kill US citizens and others far from any battlefield, without judicial oversight, and in secret. The executive branch has developed a secret bureaucracy of killing, complete with a secret government panel that identifies names of suspected terrorists, secret lists of people to be targeted for death, secret legal opinions, and secret presidential authorizations to kill. This program deserves, and requires, public oversight and debate.  

As Hajjar points out, however, the government has not responded to calls for accountability and transparency by publicly justifying the legality of the targeted killing program or defending it in court. Rather, consistent with the model of “state lawfare” she describes, it has aggressively asserted that accountability mechanisms are completely inapplicable. To this end, Defense Department general counsel Jeh Johnson recently stated that courts should have no role in reviewing the legality of “targeting decisions” and the “application of lethal force” in the targeted killing context. Attorney General Holder elaborated on this position on March 5 when he argued that courts should not be allowed to enforce the constitutional right to due process for US citizens subject to targeted killing. In the government’s view, the secret deliberations of executive branch officials should be sufficient. 

In an open and democratic society, it is not enough for the government merely to assure the public that it is acting within the law when it seeks to kill. Only when the government is compelled to face real transparency can the legality, legitimacy, and wisdom of the targeted killing program truly be put to the test. Courts have thus far accepted the US government’s claims of official secrecy to insulate itself from criticism, but the government’s selective leaks and acknowledgments about the targeted killing program have reached a critical mass. Courts should no longer accept the cynical claim that the very existence of a targeted killing program continues to be secret, or that judges should have no role in holding the government to account.

[This is the fourth part of a six-part series associated with a Jadaliyya roundtable discussing targeted killings . Participants include Richard Falk, Nathan Freed Wessler, Pardiss Kabriaei, Leonard Small, and Lisa Hajjar. Click here for the introduction to the roundtable.] 

In a speech at Yale Law School in February 2012, the US Defense Department’s General Counsel, Jeh Johnson, outlined several legal principles that form the basis for the Obama administration’s national security policy against al-Qaeda and “associated forces.” Echoing the position the administration has consistently argued in court in cases raising national security issues, he said that decisions taken as part of the administration’s targeted killing policy are not appropriate for judicial review. Johnson assured the students that such decisions are debated and scrutinized by lawyers within the executive branch, but his position was that the courts should not and need not get involved.

That position is clearly the antithesis of what we advocated in Al-Aulaqi v. Obama, a lawsuit brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) challenging targeted killings by US forces outside zones of recognized armed conflict, specifically, the United States’ targeting of a US citizen in Yemen. In bringing Al-Aulaqi, our contention was that when it comes to a US citizen who is being targeted for killing by his own government on the basis of accusations alone that he is a member of a terrorist organization, who is at risk of being arbitrarily deprived of his life under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, and with respect to whom there is no question that the protections of the US Constitution apply—that in at least such a case, there must be a role for the courts.

Our substantive legal argument was that any lethal action by the United States in Yemen against Anwar Al-Aulaqi, whom the US accuses of being a member of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), must be governed by the Constitution and international human rights law, which permit lethal force without due process only where there is an imminent threat of deadly harm and such force is a last resort. That usual constitutional constraint on the government’s actions was not displaced by the exceptional rules of war for two reasons: because the hostilities in Yemen between the US and AQAP do not rise to the level of an armed conflict, and even assuming the existence of an armed conflict between the US, al-Qaeda and undefined “associated forces” that extends everywhere – or, as the administration puts it, in Afghanistan and “elsewhere” – AQAP is not such an associated force and thus does not come within that conflict.

Based on the information reported about Al-Aulaqi’s targeting – that he had been added to government “kill” lists on which individuals remained for months at a time, and that he had been the target of prior unsuccessful US strikes and was being actively pursued – we alleged that there was a standing order for his killing that called into question whether the standards of imminence and last resort were being applied. Our request of the court was not to engage in real-time assessment of the government’s targeting decisions, but to determine the legal standard that should govern its actions and enjoin the government from killing Al-Aulaqi outside of those parameters.

The administration did not respond to the substance of our arguments, but argued instead that the court should not consider the case at all. Obama Department of Justice attorneys echoed many of the arguments their Bush administration predecessors had made in seeking to prevent judicial review of allegations of arbitrary detention, extraordinary rendition, and torture since 9/11. The government’s arguments for dismissal included that our case raised national security questions – “political questions” – best left to the executive branch, and that litigation of the case would also risk disclosure of sensitive national security information – “state secrets.”

The district court ultimately dismissed the case on political question and standing grounds, holding that our client, Al-Aulaqi’s father, was not the appropriate person to bring the case because we had not shown that his son could not act for himself, despite being under continuous threat of death by drone. In its political question holding, the district court acknowledged the “somewhat unsettling nature” of its conclusion “that there are circumstances in which the Executive’s unilateral decision to kill a US citizen overseas … is judicially unreviewable,” and that no US court had ever refused to hear a citizen’s claim that his personal constitutional rights have been violated as a result of US government action taken abroad on political question grounds.

Indeed, in cases the Supreme Court has considered over the past decade, where the executive branch claimed the authority to detain US and foreign citizens alike as “enemy combatants” without charge, and deny or restrict their access to the courts, the Court repeatedly rejected the notion that it should have no role or only a very circumscribed one. In the Court’s 2004 opinion in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, for example, in response to the government’s argument that anything beyond limited judicial review would raise profound separation of powers concerns and interfere with vital military objectives in wartime, a plurality of the Court “reject[ed] the Government’s assertion that separation of powers principles mandate a heavily circumscribed role for the courts in such circumstances,” and held that even in times of conflict, the Constitution “most assuredly envisions a role for all three branches [of government] when individual liberties are at stake.”

Implicit in the Obama administration’s position against judicial review of its targeting practices is not only that such review is inappropriate, but also that it is unnecessary. As Jeh Johnson assured the students at Yale, lawyers within the executive branch subject the administration’s national security legal positions to great scrutiny. But the necessity of internal diligence notwithstanding, resting on executive assurances alone has led to egregious wrongs in the past.

Guantanamo is an apt example. From the first days the prison opened in January 2002, government officials issued statements that the men being detained at the US military base, who stumbled off planes in shackles and hoods, were all dangerous members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban who had been captured fighting in Afghanistan and were intent on doing harm to the US. From 2002 to 2004, the US held over 750 men on the basis of its own secret information and secret determinations. We did not know the names or nationalities of those being held, for what reasons or on what legal basis.

In the first case to challenge the detentions, Rasul v. Bush, the government argued for the courts to stay out: In the global armed conflict against al-Qaeda and its supporters, judicial review would put the courts “in the unprecedented position of micro-managing the Executive’s handling of captured enemy combatants” and, in any case, the absence of review did not mean the detainees were without rights or that their detentions were without congressional and public scrutiny.

The detainees ultimately prevailed in Rasul, which opened the government’s detention policy at Guantanamo to real scrutiny. Years more litigation and scrutiny exposed that the Bush administration’s claim of detention authority was overbroad, its internal processes for status determinations were woefully inadequate and, ultimately, that many men were wrongfully held and abused for many years. Notwithstanding debates about whether or to what extent this administration’s policies differ from the former, unreviewable executive authority can lead to overreaching and abuse regardless of the particular president in office. In the context of targeted killing, the consequences are obviously irreparable.

Alongside the lack of judicial review thus far, other meaningful checks on the administration’s targeted killing operations are also lacking. For one, there are gaps in congressional oversight. The targeted killings with which CCR was concerned in Al-Aulaqi – those occurring outside of recognized war zones – are not carried out by conventional US military forces, but by the CIA and a clandestine unit of the military known as the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Reporting of information about CIA and JSOC operations is generally limited to Intelligence and Armed Services Committees in the House of Representatives and the Senate, and sometimes only to their leaders. Those who are briefed on these operations are prohibited from discussing what they have learned with those who lack the requisite security clearance. Thus, as the Washington Post reported in December 2011, “the vast majority of lawmakers receive scant information about the administration’s drone program.” Moreover, because CIA and JSOC operations are reported to separate committees, “no committee has a complete, unobstructed view” of the program. JSOC, which according to some experts has more of a central role than the CIA in counter-terrorism efforts against al-Qaeda, has less oversight of its activities than the CIA. While some briefing to the Armed Services Committees does reportedly occur, there is nothing analogous to the reporting required of CIA operations to the Intelligence Committees.

The public has also been kept largely in the dark about the targeted killings that were our concern in Al-Aulaqi. One of the most egregious examples of the lack of transparency by the US is an attack in Yemen in December 2009, during a period in which the government insisted that its only role in that country was limited to training Yemeni military forces. On 17 December 2009, a cruise missile struck the village of al-Majalah, killing forty-one members of two families, including twenty-one children. The Yemeni government claimed responsibility. US news sources reported experts who criticized Yemen’s “heavy-handed” methods. The Pentagon refused to comment. A year later, reported leaks revealed that it was the US, not the Yemeni government, that had conducted the strike, and that US and Yemeni officials secretly had agreed that the Yemenis would publicly to take responsibility for this and other US military strikes in the country.

Such deniability of targeted killings by the US in Yemen and Pakistan is less plausible now, but the US still does not officially acknowledge these strikes, let alone provide any data that would allow the public to understand the scope and impact of the killings or their compliance with the law. Ironically, while the government will not officially confirm or deny responsibility for its strikes, it has seen it prudent to confirm that they have resulted in very few civilian casualties. In June 2011, John Brennan claimed that “there ha[dn’t] been a single collateral death” resulting from CIA drone strikes in Pakistan for almost a year. Juxtaposed with even the more conservative figures of non-governmental sources documenting the deaths resulting from these strikes, the government’s claims raise serious questions that must be answered, including about its criteria for defining targets.

[This is the third part of a six-part series associated with a Jadaliyya roundtable discussing targeted killings . Participants include Richard Falk, Nathan Freed Wessler, Pardiss Kabriaei, Leonard Small, and Lisa Hajjar. Click here for the introduction to the roundtable.] 

The practice now commonly termed “targeted killing” was, before the turn of the twenty-first century, referred to as “assassination.” Both terms refer to the lethal use of force in a surprise attack against an enemy or foe, whether by a sniper, a surgical-precision drone strike, or a magnetic bomb placed on a vehicle. There are, however, important legal and rhetorical differences between the two terms: Assassination is certainly illegal, whereas targeted killing, at least according to the Israeli High Court of Justice (HCJ), is neither legal nor illegal per se; the legality depends on the circumstances in which it is deployed. 

Assassination is part of our cultural landscape, the subject of countless fiction and non-fiction books, films, and documentaries. While some might take a certain pleasure in the fantasy of James Bond's “licence to kill,” in reality the transgressive and deathly nature of assassination is less spectacularly heroic, and far more gruesome. Because assassination is a form of extra-judicial execution, no state ever had admitted to conducting such a policy because it flies in the face of an individual’s right to life, and the right to due process. To admit to an assassination policy would be to disregard the separation of powers that lies at the heart of democracy; the state would be playing the role of judge and executioner. 

It came, therefore, as a great surprise to the international community when, in late 2000, Israel announced that it was (and had been for some time) “liquidating” enemy Palestinians. Twelve years later, it is still difficult to assess exactly why Israel chose that moment to acknowledge the policy, especially when such killings had been denied for so long. Speaking on behalf of the Israeli government just days after the initial announcement, Daniel Reisner, former head of the International Law Branch of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), claimed that the second intifada was responsible. The intifada brought about a shift in Israeli rules of engagement which subsequently led to the declaration of the overt policy of targeted killing. “Prior to the second Intifada,” Reisner told the press, “Israeli soldiers were actually told to wait until they were fired upon, before responding.” But the change in “circumstances” had necessitated that “Israeli soldiers no longer are required to wait until they are actually shot at before they respond.” The second intifada was a game-changer, according to former Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh: “For sure, it is a signal. If the game is a guerrilla war, we are the champions of the world,” he told Associated Press.  

But perhaps more important than the announcement of the targeted killing policy was the fact that behind the scenes its architects had prepared what they regarded to be a compelling defense and justification. Israeli officials felt confident enough that targeted killings were so imperative to the nation’s security that they were, in fact, legal and legitimate. Because assassination is illegal, the crucial concern for Israel was to find a way to eliminate enemies without appearing to contravene the law. “Extra-judicial” killing had to be brought within the pale of law. This was no small task and involved nothing less than the “legalization” of assassination. 

Israel's ingenuity was both legalistic and rhetorical, and it is here that we witness the crucial difference between the terms “assassination” and “targeted killing.” A veritable legal and political armature underscored the move toward an overt assassination program. The CIA realized the essence of the problem as early as 1954, which is why it has always (notwithstanding some recent exceptions vis-a-vis the not-so-secret drone missions in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere) opted to keep covert missions covert. The training manual, A Study of Assassination, distributed to agents and operatives at the time of the agency's 1954 coup in Guatemala, noted that “No assassination instructions should ever be written or recorded,” adding, “Assassination can seldom be employed with a clear conscience. Persons who are morally squeamish should not attempt it.” The problem was that assassination was an unsavoury affair, particularly unpalatable for morally squeamish publics as well. For that reason, the practice was difficult to justify.

The first thing that Israeli government lawyers had to do, therefore, was to change the language and terminology. How can assassination be made to sound legal and morally defensible? Israel immediately stopped using the word “assassination,” and dropped all terms which carry a negative and illegal connotation. In 2001, one year into the officially declared policy, Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein pointed out that the term “liquidation” damages Israel's image and proposed that it was better to use the phrase “targeted killing” to describe the policy. Thus, a new, more neutral, less offensive term was coined. The change in terminology is immensely significant because it changes the act of killing from one that is always-already illegal to one that is, if not persuasively, then at least plausibly, legal and permissible.

Lawfare: An Historical Perspective

This legal ingenuity of Israel is captured by what Lisa Hajjar calls “state lawfare,” and as she rightly points out, targeted killing is but the most recent manifestation of Israel's instrumentalization of the law. Israel paved the way for targeted killing, and has set legal precedent and custom which has proved very useful and expedient in rationalizing the Obama administration's drone wars. However, Israel did not pioneer state lawfare, as suggested by Hajjar; various forms of it have been around for centuries, rather than decades. Indeed, in Palestine, the very same space as these targeted killings are taking place today, the Ottomans issued a series of laws, for example the “dead land” (or mewat) laws, that were every bit as violent as Israel's contemporary lawfare. In fact, there is historical evidence to suggest that international law was founded to legitimize the violence of colonial powers against their subjugated and colonized people. 

Post-colonial scholars such as Antony Angie argue that the law not only legitimized colonial exploitation, but also developed many mechanisms to prevent colonial reparations. Lawfare has a much longer history than is suggested by Hajjar and others; we find instances of it - or something very similar to it - in Francisco de Vitoria's justification for Spanish conquest in the Americas in the1500s, just as we find it at the heart of British colonial rule around the world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including the British Mandate in Palestine which brought the modern conflict between Israel and Palestine into being. These acts were justified by law and mandate; they were acts of war (or worse), conducted not only through, but also in the name of law. If lawfare is the use of law as a weapon of war, then do these historical examples not set lawfare precedents?

Historicizing lawfare is important because there is a tendency to overplay the newness associated with contemporary asymmetric wars, especially in the wake of the Bush administration’s war on the rule of law vis-à-vis Guantánamo, torture and extra-judicial rendition. The focus on the recent, as well the obsession with the US and Israel, belies an important historical fact concerning the relationship between law and war. Law is not a recent addition to the arsenal of war. Clausewitz taught us this much. The Lieber code of 1863 permitted all kinds of violence, as did the Hague Convention of 1907, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Additional Protocols of 1977 and 2005. International humanitarian law (IHL), the laws which regulate armed conflict and war, do not prohibit killing but rather (and much more modestly) prescribe certain conditions for its execution. Law participates in violence, and has done so for quite some time, and certainly predates Israel's present lawfare campaign. 

All this matters because, for Hajjar, there is a form of lawfare that is ultimately a good thing. While I do share her optimism that international legal fora can be leveraged to challenge lethal and inhumane policies, I would caution that a much more careful approach to lawfare is required. If, as I have suggested, lawfare is not new, and is not limited to Israel or the US, those advocates of appropriating lawfare are up against a broader and more complex “enemy” than they may have imagined. They must also be aware that by engaging in lawfare, they are tacitly agreeing to play by the rules set by military calculations. In armed conflict, law has to strike a balance between what is called “military necessity” and humanitarian consideration. These are the great weights at either end of war's colossal scales, and often the balance favors the military. When the language of law is used—i.e., “proportionality,” “distinction,” “necessity”--killing is not prohibited and it is accepted that, in some circumstances, some innocent people will die and will do so in a manner that is entirely consistent with the relevant law. And so while some lawfare practitioners might distinguish what they do from what traditional humanitarians like the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) do, the question remains: at what expense do they use the language of law and lawfare at all? This question goes back to the above point about the relationship between law and violence. The problem is much greater than Israeli and US abuse of the law. The problem might be the law itself, and the legitimacy it confers to actions that would otherwise be thought illegal and immoral. 

To suggest that Israel pioneered state lawfare is, therefore, to miss a potentially important critique about the dangerous potential within the law itself. First, it belies the connections between what Israel is doing today and what other colonial powers have done before it. In the same way that Israel paved the way to construct a legal rationale for this practice that the US has also employed, colonial regimes past and present have gone a long way toward legitimizing and providing the tools for Israel's lawfare over the last sixty years. These connections are surely worth making. Second, and what I turn our attention to for the remainder of this piece, it elides those parts of Israeli lawfare which are genuinely new and innovative, and which require careful consideration. Our attention is fixed on the general “newness” of Israeli lawfare, when in reality it is, as one Israeli scholar put it, “old wine in a new bottle.” 

Advocating Targeted Killing: A Lawyer’s View

One of the more recent additions to the phenomenon of lawfare is the direct involvement of military lawyers - Judge Advocate Generals (JAGs). The Israeli Military Advocate General (MAG) Corps (formerly the Legal Services Corps) has existed since Israel and the IDF were founded in 1948. Its functions are many, but broadly it is responsible for enforcing the rule of law throughout the military. In this manner, and as Hajjar points out elsewhere in relation to Meir Shamgar, the role of the MAG - the title given to the head of the Corps - includes “preparatory work,” such as writing legal manuals and formulating or revising the rules of engagement.  

While the MAG has always played an integral and even intrinsic role in Israeli military affairs, JAGs are now directly involved in targeting decisions. They give direct legal permission to the IDF as to whom, and how many, they can and cannot kill based on the intelligence that they are provided. When targeted killing first appeared as acknowledged state policy in 2000, there was a big debate in the IDF about what role the JAGs should play in the process of “executing targets.” Major General Ilan Schiff, from the military court of appeals, proposed that it would be best if a legal expert were to review the list of terror suspects who are candidates for assassination and authorize specific killings before they are carried out. However, a high-ranking IDF officer told Ha'aretz that he disagrees with Schiff's position, saying that a legal authority does not need to give the green light. Lawyers should stop getting in the way of important security issues. That debate is now settled, and JAGs do indeed have to approve each and every strike.

Amos Guiora is a former JAG who served as Legal Advisor to the Gaza Strip from 1994 to 1997. In this capacity, he was at the seat of “operational counterterrorism operations,” which meant that “when a commander was faced with the decision - yes or no to conduct a targeted killing - the guy who would receive those God-awful phone calls at 3 a.m. in the morning” was Guoira. In a typical targeted killing scenario, the JAG will ask the commander a series of questions to discern whether the suspect in question qualifies as a “legitimate military target.” A criteria-based approach, akin to a checklist, prevents situations of arbitrary killing, Guoira attests. Otherwise “what you are really doing is putting your finger in the air [to see] which way is the wind blowing.” How imminent is the threat? What is the collateral damage estimate? How sure is the commander that they have the right guy, and have they exhausted other, non-lethal means of intercepting him? The situation can be “time sensitive,” which means that decisions have to be made very quickly, often in a matter of minutes. “Is he killable?” the JAG asks himself. The IDF commander does not have to follow the advice of the JAG and the ultimate decision remains the commander’s. However, as Guoira points out, “Those of us who have been in the business know the ropes and how the game works, and if I say no the guy is not killed. If I say yes the guy is killed.” 

The JAG’s decision is sovereign: to spare life or take it away. In the above scenario Guoira and those in his position hold the divine decision to let live. On one occasion, Guoira was convinced that the threat to the Israeli body-politic was high enough to warrant execution, but he believed the IDF had the wrong guy. “Don't shoot,” he told the commander, and returned to his wife in bed. The commander called the area commander and told him to call off the strike. The man in blue jeans walked on, unaware that his life had been spared. Since targeted killing became openly declared state policy, 427 other Palestinians have not been so lucky.

JAGs perform a series of difficult tasks, which we might read in two different ways. First, they bring a form of legal reasoning to what is often thought of as the lawless space of war. Their job is to keep militaries in check, to make sure they do not overstep the mark. They oversee what has been referred to as the “humanization of war,” and indeed this is what IHL is all about. The second reading is more critical: it sees the relationship between war and law as instrumental. War needs law, not to tame it but to unleash it. Law confers legitimacy. It is in the space where law and legitimacy meet that the work of the JAGs becomes so powerful. The involvement of lawyers along every step of military operations, right down to the moments before a strike, produces a discourse of legality that is difficult to argue against. The JAGs are an extension of an already pervasive legal apparatus in the IDF, and they have the effect of making the whole process appear legal and legitimate. If there is ever any mistake or breach of the law, the JAGs and the whole legal process are there to exculpate the IDF. As the Saleh Shehadah case demonstrates, this is exactly what happens.

Into the Abyss

Over the last decade, assassination has become a normal part of Israeli and US military doctrine. When reading the news of this or that strike in Gaza or Pakistan, it is sometimes easy to forget that the lawless, murky act of assassination has transformed into one of the key methods used to fight “our” wars. To most, this was unthinkable just ten years ago. A public targeted killing policy was a radical idea which even the Bush administration and Israel's other closest allies opposed. The lawyers of war - the JAGs and the MAGs - have been instrumental in bringing about this radical shift. Customary international law is a slippery slope, and given how much ground the military and its lawyers have already taken, I wonder whether law and lawfare are our most useful weapons and whether we might not think seriously about other alternatives, be they political, ethical or otherwise. 

So that we are not left with any doubt as to the magnitude of what was being imagined by Israel, I leave the final words to Daniel Reisner, the man who perhaps more than anyone else should be credited with the very invention of modern assassination: "We [the international legal division] defended policy that is on the edge." The army says, “Here is a magic formula, is it within the bounds of what is possible? To which I will reply, I am ready to try to defend it, but I am not sure I will succeed. If it's white I will allow it, if it's black I will prohibit it, but in cases of grey I will be part of the dilemma: I do not stop at gray [...] We invented the targeted assassination thesis and we had to push it. At first there were protrusions that made it hard to insert easily into the legal moulds. Eight years later it is in the centre of the bounds of legitimacy.”

[This is the second part of a six-part series associated with a Jadaliyya roundtable discussing targeted killings . Participants include Richard Falk, Nathan Freed Wessler, Pardiss Kabriaei, Leonard Small, and Lisa Hajjar. Click here for the introduction to the roundtable.] 

There is an emergent Israeli/American controversy on the lawfulness of targeted killing. Although the policy has not yet ripened into a national debate, in the United States at least it is beginning. Lisa Hajjar’s assessment of the “legalization” of targeted killing is compelling in a number of respects, including suggesting the analogy to the torture debate that, in many ways, defined the political and moral identity of the Bush presidency, and even the American people, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. She implies, furthermore, that it was Israel that crossed the threshold of legality in response to the wave of suicide bombings that traumatized Israeli society in the 1990s. In other words, targeted killing became a tactic of choice for both the US and Israel as part of the preventive logic of counter-terrorism. The upsurge in targeted killing seems responsive to the idea that neither defensive strategies nor deterrence, nor massive retaliation are appropriate or effective against a terrorist adversary, especially if the violence is accompanied by a readiness of the perpetrator to die while carrying out the mission.

In reporting on the reliance of targeted killing and the unavailability of judicial remedies, Hajjar confronts us with the plight of rightless and vulnerable Palestinians as well as the adversaries of the US throughout the world, but she refrains from advocacy, or even explicit condemnation (although there is an implicit comparison made between the helpless victim of torture and of targeted killing). In one respect, target killing is worse than torture due both to its finality which deprives the target of any opportunity to tell his story, and because of the collateral damage inflicted on those unlucky innocents who happen to be in the killing zone—or are mistakenly targeted. Hajjar confronts us with a legal, political, and moral challenge, but makes no effort to fashion a preferred response, possibly sensing that beyond exposing the practice, it is futile at this point to say more. I am foolish, perhaps, to offer comments on four aspects of Hajjar’s framing of targeted killing.

Lawfare: Hajjar has drawn the distinction between those who view reliance on law and courts as a positive dimension of political democracy and those who view recourse to law as a means to delegitimize states and their security policies. I would develop this distinction by viewing civil society’s recourse to litigation as “constructive lawfare,” while viewing its denigration by governments,  specifically, Israel and the US, as nihilistic or regressive. Such efforts to deplore recourse to law and international standards of legitimacy aim to insulate state security policy from procedures and discipline of accountability, and deprive society of an absolutely necessary check on the abuse of state power undertaken, generally, in secrecy. Constructive lawfare is one of the few means of redressing the new imbalance between state and society in the post-9/11 world, and in relation to the acute vulnerability experienced daily by a people living under occupation for decades.

Reciprocity: David Cole makes the following cogent observation  on his New York Review of Books blog (19 September 2011): “In international law, where reciprocity governs, what is lawful for the goose is lawful for the gander.” He goes further in questioning the approach taken to targeted killing by the Obama administration as being unmindful of setting a precedent that is a prelude to future regret: if we “continue to justify such practices in only the vaguest of terms, we should expect other countries to take them up—and almost certainly in ways we will not find to our liking.”

It is true that international law in many substantive domains, from diplomatic exchange to commerce, substitutes reciprocity for enforcement, and so what is claimed for oneself is granted to others. However, in the domains of national security, the use of armed force, and criminal accountability for gross crimes, international law operates according to an imperial logic, or at best a hegemonic logic, in which equals are not treated equally. It is obvious that losers in wars and leaders of some Global South countries are being held more and more accountable for crimes against humanity, especially since the establishment of the International Criminal Court. But it is equally obvious that leaders of Western countries, including Israel, enjoy de facto impunity despite their evident involvement in crimes against humanity.

The one exception, which irritates those clinging to impunity, is the haphazard efforts to detain and prosecute state officials and agents under the controversial rubric of universal jurisdiction. Hajjar’s article gives a helpful summary of the pull and push pressures associated with attempts to rely on universal jurisdiction in relation to Israeli military and political leaders whose travel carries them to countries in Western Europe that have laws on their books permitting the use of domestic courts to pursue accountability for crimes of state committed beyond normal territorial sovereignty.

Whether the targeted killing precedents being set by the US and Israel will come to haunt these countries is highly uncertain. The US used atomic bombs against Japanese cities at the end of World War II, escaped any kind of accountability as war crimes prosecutions were limited to the wrongdoing of the Germans and Japanese, the losers in the war, which led critics of such double standards to deride the outcomes at Nuremberg and Tokyo as “victors’ justice.” In the current era, demands for targeted killing reciprocity are inevitable. Fifty countries have drones, and some deploy them for surveillance and reconnaissance missions.For example, Turkey, in fighting against Kurdish insurgents, made use of drones to carry out recent cross-border raids against PKK base areas in northern Iraq.

Surely, Iran would have strong grounds to emulate Israeli and American practice with regard to targeted killing, particularly in view of the alleged Israeli targeting and assassinating of Iranian nuclear scientists in recent years, as well as mounting repeated threats of launching an attack designed to disable Iran’s nuclear program. Such threats are direct violations of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter that categorically prohibits “the threat or use of force” except in situations of self-defense against a prior armed attack (Article 51) or as mandated by a decision of the UN Security Council. But if Iran was to avail itself of the targeted killing precedent to assassinate individuals in Israel or the United States that it deemed to be threatening or responsible for a prior attack on its citizens, such violence would be denounced as “terrorism,” and devastating forms of retaliation would almost certainly follow.

In other words, reciprocity is not likely to shape the future of targeted killing, but rather a regime of (ITALICIZE) double standards that resembles what exists in relation to international criminal accountability or with respect to the possession of nuclear weaponry.

Human Rights: It is important to introduce the perspectives of human rights into the legal debate on targeting killing, and not limit inquiry to the applicability of international humanitarian law as set forth in the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Geneva Protocols of 1977. Targeted killing of a non-combatant involves a challenge to the right to life, as well as constitutes a flagrant form of extra-judicial execution. UN Special Rapporteur on Extra-judicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions Philip Alston, in his influential 2010 report to the UN Human Rights Council, legally condemns targeted killing by drones on these bases, especially those taking place outside the combat zone, or as the Obama presidency puts it, far from “the hot battlefield.”

These human rights objections to targeted killing take on added force when extended to individuals who are suspected of inciting terrorist acts, as was the case with Anwar al-Awlaki, but without any disclosure of evidence of either the case against the target or a credible demonstration that such an individual posed an imminent security threat and could not be captured. As Hajjar points out, the difficulties posed by detention constraints and questionable evidence that would hold up in court exert pressure to avoid these complexities by killing the person in question. 

Self-defense: The most serious encroachment on relatively settled conceptions of the self-defense exception to the international law prohibition on the use of force is the US reliance on an extended definition of self-defense to validate targeted killing in countries outside an existing combat zone. To view the execution of individuals in Yemen or Somalia on the ground that their activities are to be assimilated to the claim of self-defense associated with the continuing response to the al-Qaeda 9/11 attacks is to undermine the attempts since 1945 to use international law to reduce the discretion available to states when it comes to the use of force. The most articulate legal argument along these lines was expressed by John Brennan, Obama’s official chief counterterrorist advisor, in his speech  at the Harvard Law School a few months ago. The irony here is that, just as John Yoo shocked the conscience of liberal America by insisting that practices long assumed to be torture (most notably water boarding) were not torture (i.e., flagrantly illegal) when employed by the US government, now the Obama administration asserts a similar position that America loves the rule of law, but whatever America wants to do is “legal” even when it flaunts the generally accepted understanding of a rule of international law. In this instance, self-defense is stretched way beyond the accepted consensus among international law specialists as most authoritatively expressed by the majority of the International Court of Justice in its Nicaragua decision of 1986. Claiming that self-defense entitles the United States to convert the entire world into a global battlefield is certainly bad law, but it is also likely to be bad policy, generating support for extremist expressions of anti-Americanism. And it is scant consolation for Mr. Brennan and other Obama officials to reassure the public that this broad legal authority is used prudently and sparingly, and with a maximum effort to avoid harm to others than those targeted.

A Word in Conclusion

Hajjar’s article provides us with the materials we require to launch a much needed debate on targeted killing. Unlike torture, which has vividness and immediacy that existentially assaults our sense of decency and dignity, the relative novelty of targeted killing, a technologically facilitated innovation in the tactics of state violence, seems more abstract and less in conflict with civilizational values. In some respects, this distinction identifies some real difference. Most legal commentators do not challenge targeted killing if confined to the combat zone, say Afghanistan, but focus their criticisms on its cross-border uses, which in the US case, can be anywhere in the non-Western world. In this regard, while torture is primarily of concern as a crime against humanity, targeted killing raises issues of world order, sovereignty, the scope of warfare, and extra-judicial executions.

[This is the first part of a six-part series associated with a Jadaliyya roundtable discussing targeted killings. Participants include Richard Falk, Nathan Freed Wessler, Pardiss Kabriaei, Leonard Small, and Lisa Hajjar.] 

On 5 March 2012, Attorney General Eric Holder delivered a speech in which he laid out the US position on law and national security. The second half of his speech was devoted to the targeted killing program, which has escalated dramatically during the Obama administration. Although the military and the CIA have been engaged in such attacks for years, rarely have government officials acknowledged the practice on the record. Holder stated that he could not "discuss or confirm any particular program or operation," but his speech was significant for publicly outlining the Obama administration's position on the rationales under federal and international law. The most contentious issue, at least domestically, is the targeted killing of US citizens abroad. Holder defended the legality of such operations and, implicitly, the legality of excluding the courts from playing any oversight role. "'Due process' and 'judicial process' are not one and the same," he said, "particularly when it comes to national security. The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process."

In this Jadaliyya O.I.L. (occupation, intervention and law) roundtable on targeted killings, Richard Falk, Nathan Freed Wessler, Pardiss Kabriaei, and Lennie Small engage with Lisa Hajjar’s “Lawfare and Targeted Killing: Developments in the Israeli and US Contexts.” They offer interventions that extend the discussion in a variety of directions, and she provides a response to their contributions.

Hajjar’s thought-provoking essay traces Israeli and US efforts over the last decade to establish the legality of the practice of targeted killing. She terms this “state lawfare,” which she defines as

“interpretative innovations […] devised to frame otherwise clearly illegal practices as legal by contending that the laws that would prohibit them are inapplicable. In these twenty-first century asymmetrical conflicts, officials interpreted the law to assert the state’s operationally and territorially unbounded rights and the rightlessness of its enemies.”

She also examines another aspect of lawfare, namely efforts to challenge the legality targeted killing policies in national courts in Israel and US, as well as in several other countries.

Richard Falk, a world-renowned scholar of international law and politics who currently serves as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, highlights the impact of reciprocity in international law. He argues that the influence of US and Israeli arguments about the legality and legitimacy of targeted killings may embolden other states to follow suit, adopting the practice and asserting its legality. He warns that because the international community would probably respond to targeted killings by other regimes as terrorism, the current situation portends double standards similar to those which exist in relation to criminal accountability for gross crimes, and the proliferation of nuclear weaponry. He also argues that the use of self-defense rationales by the US to justify targeted killings in various countries is likely to convert the whole world into a global battleground.

Nathan Freed Wessler, a staff attorney with the ACLU, examines the US practice of targeted killings. He highlights the lack of transparency surrounding this policy and the pitfalls of shielding official decision-making and targeting criteria from public and judicial review. In response to legal challenges, the Obama administration has invoked the states secrets privilege to cloak itself in immunity, and has staunchly refused to respond to two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests brought by the ACLU. Wessler concludes by calling for a more transparent policy that may benefit from judicial review to limit the scope of executive authority in killing programs whose targets include US citizens.

Pardiss Kabriaei, a staff attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), explores the US's insistence on maintaining a secret program without review and warns of the dangers of deferring to executive assurances alone. Kabriaei illustrates the problems with this secretive and unaccountable governmental position by drawing comparatively on the deleterious experience of Guantanamo. She notes that the push by CCR and others for judicial review of Bush administration detention policies that violated US and international laws had a positive effect in curbing at least some of the abuses. The same would hold truefor targeted killing. She cautions that “unreviewable executive authority can lead to overreaching and abuse regardless of the particular president in office and, in the context of targeted killing, the consequences are obviously irreparable."

Lennie Small, a Ph.D student, begins with a discussion of the recent efforts to distinguish between “assassination,” which is clearly illegal, and “targeted killing,” which has become the preferred term for extra-judicial executions in the context of asymmetric wars. He takes issue with Hajjar’s analysis of “state lawfare” as a contemporary phenomenon; he argues that similar patterns of legal interpretation have been used for centuries by powerful governments to legitimate tactics of warfare and other forms of state-sanctioned violence to maintain control over rebellious populations or opposition groups. Small then describes and evaluates the role of military lawyers, specifically Israelis, in the evolution of these concepts and their application in the current conflict in Israel/Palestine.

Sunday, March 4th was an action-packed day for Occupy AIPAC. From the early hours of the morning, protesters occupied the streets surrounding the convention center to greet conference attendees with signs, chants, artwork, song and dance, and in several instances, attempts to start a dialogue. Despite several hostile encounters with both AIPAC conference attendees and police officers, Occupy AIPAC seemed to only pick up momentum as the day progressed. In what was perhaps the most moving part of the day, protesters shared their personal stories and thoughts about Israel's crimes over a loud microphone directly in front of the convention center's main doors, undoubtedly heard by all in the vicinity. Although their words may have fallen on mostly deaf ears, they certainly made it known that unlike the U.S. administration, many Americans are far from willing to welcome AIPAC with open arms.

The right to religious liberty is widely regarded as a crowning achievement of secular-liberal democracies that guarantees the peaceful co-existence of religiously diverse populations. While all members of a polity are supposed to be protected by the right to religious liberty, religious minorities are understood to be its greatest beneficiaries in the protection it accords them to practice their beliefs freely without fear of state intervention or social discrimination. Conventional wisdom has it that religious liberty is a universally valid principle, enshrined in national constitutions and international charters and treaties, whose proper implementation continues to be thwarted by intransigent forces in society such as illiberal governments, religious fundamentalists, and traditional norms. Insomuch as the Middle East, and the Muslim world in general, are supposed to be afflicted with the ills of fundamentalism and illiberal governments, then the salvific promise of religious liberty looms large. In this brief post I would like to question this way of thinking through a consideration of the career of religious liberty in the modern Middle East (for a fuller development of the arguments here, see my forthcoming article, “Religious Freedom, the Minority Question, and Geopolitics in the Middle East,” in Comparative Studies in Society and History).

As I will show, far from being a universally valid, stable principle, the meaning and practice of religious liberty have shifted historically in the Middle East, often in response to geopolitical struggles, the expansion of modern state power, and local regimes of socio-religious inequality. Rather than treat the history of the Middle East as simply one of aberration from the norm of Western tolerance, in what follows I would like to consider how this history makes us rethink the normative claims enfolded in the current advocacy of the right to religious liberty and the universal good it is supposed to facilitate. In offering these reflections, my intent is neither to promote nor to reject the right to religious liberty but to force us to consider the contradictions and paradoxes that lie at the foundation of this much coveted right.

Let us consider briefly the historical trajectory of religious liberty in the late Ottoman Empire that offers an interesting contrast to its historical unfolding in Western Europe. The modern conception of religious liberty—with its attendant notion of individual conscience and belief as the proper locus of religion—was unknown in the Ottoman Empire until well into the mid-eighteenth century. As is well known, under the Ottoman millet system “the people of the book” (Christians and Jews) were granted limited collective autonomy over certain juridical affairs (including issues of marriage, family, and worship) but were otherwise treated as social and political unequals of Muslims. This juridical autonomy was one of the primary ways in which the Ottomans managed to rule over an immense diversity of religious faiths for over six centuries. Importantly, this “nonliberal model of pluralism” was different from the liberal model in that each religious community’s autonomy was justified not in terms of groups versus individual rights, but in terms of a political order in which difference was paramount. The Ottomans did not aim to politically transform difference into sameness as does the modern nation-state; instead various contiguous religious groups were integrated through a vertical system of hierarchy in which Muslims occupied the highest position. Importantly, the liberal individualist notion of civil and political equality that makes the modern conception of freedom of belief possible was not the paradigm in this pre-modern period.

Things of course started to slowly change with the birth of the modern state wherein the terms “majority” and “minority” came to serve as constitutional devices for resolving differences that the ideology of nationalism sought to eradicate, eliminate, or assimilate. The Ottoman Empire formally adopted the right to religious liberty in 1856 (under the famous Hatt-i Hümayun decree) largely under European pressure. This pressure was far from a benign attempt on the part of Europeans to promote religious tolerance in Ottoman lands: their own record toward “Christian dissidents” much less non-Christian minorities was hardly tolerant at the time. Notably, the European pressure was a product of long-standing geopolitical struggles between Christian European states and the Ottomans. Christian European rulers had made repeated attempts throughout the sixteenth century to assert their right to protect Christian minorities within Ottoman territories. As long as the Ottoman Empire was strong it was able to accommodate these pressures without compromising its sovereignty, but once Ottoman power started to decline it was unable to resist Western European incursions on behalf of Ottoman Christian groups. As early as the sixteenth century, Ottoman rulers had granted special privileges—known as “capitulations”—to Western European traders that ensured a considerable degree of self-government in matters of criminal and civil jurisdiction as well as freedom of religion and worship. Eventually, as Ottoman power declined, these privileges came to apply not only to Western traders but also to European missionaries and eventually indigenous Ottoman Christian communities (what were then called “Eastern Christians”). Notably, no parallel privileges existed for non-Christians residing in territories ruled by Christian empires at this time. Macolm Evans, in his magisterial history of the right to religious liberty, notes, “Within this framework, the role of Western European States as protectors of the religious freedom of their subjects within the Ottoman domains easily elided into a claim entitling them to champion the liberties, religious and otherwise, of all Christians in the Empire.”

When Ottoman rulers adopted the modern conception of the right to religious liberty in 1856, the fate of non-Muslim communities in the empire was only formally but not substantively transformed. As historians of the late Ottoman Empire point out, for the Ottoman rulers the right to religious liberty served as a dual means to fend off increasingly powerful Christian missionary movements on the one hand, and to shore up the Islamic character of the empire on the other. The empire had already lost large parts of its territory (one-third by 1878), and the Ottoman reformers were eager to bring Christians who had become protégés of foreign states (under the system of capitulations) back under the jurisdiction of the Ottoman state. For many Ottoman Christians, however, the right to religious liberty served as a means of claiming Western protection against systemic discrimination, in the process transforming their identity and self-understanding.

In contrast to the Ottoman rulers and Ottoman Christians, religious liberty meant something quite distinct to the European missionaries who had considerably expanded their activities in the Muslim world by the nineteenth century. For these missionaries, religious liberty was a crucial means for securing the right to proselytize freely among Muslims and Christians without constraint from existing laws and prohibitions against religious conversion. In Egypt, for example, Euro-American missionaries, who had failed to win converts among Muslims, concentrated their energies on Coptic Orthodox Christians whom they had long regarded with disdain and outright contempt as practitioners of a depraved form of Christianity. Importantly, American and European missionaries enjoyed the protection of British colonial authorities in Egypt, and the colonial period (1882–1918) was the apex of missionary activities in the region. The advantages accorded to Westerners under the Ottoman capitulations proved to be crucial for the missionaries in gaining access to Egyptian rural and urban populations. These missionaries made ubiquitous use of international diplomacy and colonial and foreign offices of Anglo-American governments in their cause, internationally advocating for the adoption of religious liberty in forums as diverse as the League of Nations, the Paris Peace Conference, the U.S. State Department, and the British Foreign Office. The recent passage of the International Religious Freedom Act by the U.S. Congress (1998) to promote the right of religious liberty (particularly Christians) in the Middle East must be placed within this long geopolitical history in which Western powers have often violated the principle of state sovereignty under the guise of promoting religious tolerance. No non-Western nation-state in modern history has been able to exert the same pressure to advocate the rights of religious, racial, or ethnic minorities living in the Western world.

Given the history I have tracked here, it is important to realize that the meaning of religious freedom has varied historically depending on the geopolitical position of the players in the Middle East. Furthermore, the career of the right of religious liberty has hardly been one of secular neutrality in the Middle East. Through much of its modern history, the right to religious liberty has served as a means to either promote campaigns of religious proselytization to win Christian converts, or to consolidate the majoritarian ethos of the emergent modern state. This history forces us to consider how religious liberty is not simply a juridical means of protecting the individual believer from state coercion. Rather, crucially, it is a technique of national and international governance whose proper exercise has always entailed realpolitik concerns.

One may ask at this point, how have the religious minorities of the Middle East been affected by these geopolitical struggles over religious liberty? The answer to this question of course varies depending on the history of each nation-state in the region. If we take the example of Coptic Orthodox Christians in Egypt, the largest Christian population in the Middle East, one would need to start with the history of the longstanding rivalry and struggle between Western and Oriental Orthodox Christianity (of which Coptic Christianity is a part). Throughout much of modern history, starting with the Roman Catholic Church, Western Christendom has continued to view Coptic Christianity as a primitive form of Christianity whose salvation could only come from the West. This view was further entrenched by the wave of Protestant missionaries, initially sent from Europe (Anglicans, Episcopalians, and Lutherans) and later the United States (Presbyterian Evangelicals), none of whom had success with Muslim converts and concentrated their energies on the Copts. In light of this rivalry, it is not surprising that Coptic Christians historically resisted European offers of patronage to “protect and represent” the Copts against Muslim rule. Thus, unlike, for example, the Maronite Christians of Lebanon who made strong alliances with French colonial powers, the Copts were at the forefront of the anti-colonial struggle against the British and were equal players in the shaping of the nationalist project in the 1940s and 1950s.

Despite this distinguished history of Coptic resistance and the enshrinement of the right to religious liberty in the Egyptian constitution, Coptic Christians have continued to suffer from various forms of formal and informal discrimination in postcolonial Egypt. In recent years, the discourse of religious liberty has become a dominant idiom in the Coptic struggle against social and state policies that marginalize Copts on the basis of their religious identity. In this struggle, however, religious liberty once again is not a stable signifier but means very different things to different groups.

At the heart of the contested meaning of religious liberty in Egypt is a political system that has enshrined the Coptic Orthodox Church as the sole representative of the Coptic community and created a church-state entente that makes it difficult for secular-lay Copts to change the terms of debate. As a result, the Coptic Church tends to deploy a communitarian understanding of religious liberty that serves to consolidate its authority over the religious and social life of its followers. This conception sits in tension with an individualist notion advocated by secular human rights activists grounded in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), both of which privilege notions of personal conscience, belief, and choice. The Euro-American Coptic diaspora, in alliance with an increasingly powerful Christian evangelical global network, champions a third concept grounded in Article 27 of the ICCPR that foregrounds a collective conception of religious freedom as a right of minority groups. Finally, the Egyptian government promotes its own narrow conception of religious liberty aimed at securing the Islamic character of the Egyptian nation and national-security interests.

It would be wrong to assume that religious liberty consists of simply protecting certain groups or individuals from the exercise of state power (that is, drawing the separation between church and state firmly and resolutely). The people who are supposed to benefit most from the modern principle of religious liberty—namely, religious minorities—are not merely protected from abuses of state power but are also transformed by virtue of their subjection to the calculus of state and geopolitical power in unique and unpredictable ways. The shift, for example, from a group-based understanding of religious liberty to an individualist one in international legal discourse is more than a conceptual shift; it also affects the substantive meaning and practice of religious liberty as well as the kinds of subjects who can speak in its name.

In concluding this post, let me point out that these contrastive deployments of religious liberty are often read as the cynical instrumentalization of an otherwise noble principle in the service of realpolitik or corrupt ends. Seen in this way, the principle itself—its logic, its aim, and its substantive meaning—remains unsullied by the impious intentions of the empires, actors, and states that sought to promote or subvert it. Such an argument needs to be complicated for several reasons. As I have shown, far from being a measure of a culture’s intolerance, religious freedom has been tied from its very inception to the exercise of sovereign power, regional and national security, and the inequality of geopolitical power relations in the Middle East. These differential meanings must be understood, I want to suggest, not simply as opportunistic deployments of a single noble principle but as reflective of the contradictions and paradoxes internal to the conceptual architecture of the right to religious liberty itself and its global history. Insomuch as the right to religious liberty is enabled by conditions of geopolitical inequality and differential sovereignty between the First and Third Worlds, it behooves us to rethink the global good its advocates often promise to all peoples of the world. Indeed, if the universal promotion of religious liberty has been ridden with colonial and neocolonial agendas, then how does one grapple with the legitimate and important question of providing protections to religious minorities across the Western and non-Western divide? What other procedural, legal, and social mechanisms do modern polities make possible that can be separated from the exercise of geopolitical domination, interests, and power? Is such a separation possible not just conceptually but practically given the intractability of politics from all human rights struggles of our times?

[This article was originally published on The Immanent Frame: Secularism, Religion, and the Public Sphere].

Mervat F. Hatem, Literature, Gender, and Nation-Building in Nineteenth-Century Egypt: The Life and Works of `A’sha Taymur. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book?

Mervat Hatem (MH): The modern construction of Egyptian history gives the grand old men of nineteenth-century Egyptian modernity (Khedive Ismail, Sheikh Rifa` Rafi` al-Tahtawi, and judge Qasim Amin) credit for promoting the interests of women by respectively building the first general school for women in al-Siyufiya (1873) and publishing one important book that supported the education of women (1873) and another to advocate their liberation through the abolition of the veil (1899). This dominant narrative usually acknowledged `A’sha Taymur, the prominent nineteenth-century writer of fiction, social commentaries, and poetry, but presented her as part of another patriarchal narrative of her life and work. In explaining how she emerged as a pioneering woman writer, most historians (men and women) focus their attention on how Taymur’s mother wanted to teach her embroidery, which she hated and resisted, wanting instead to learn how to read and write. Her father saved her from the reactionary expectations of her mother by supporting her aspirations for a literary education, paving the way for her emergence as one of pioneering women of the century.

I found this narrative, which claimed to be about women’s liberation, to be troubling: the contrast between the support of the father for his daughter’s ambitions and her mother’s opposition to change, coupled with the way this narrative infantilized Taymur forever by maintaining a puzzling silence on her adult struggles and the works that made her prominent, had conservative political and social implications. I wondered if a fuller investigation of Taymur’s life and work would provide us with a better understanding of the entirety of her life and, more importantly, an appreciation of her work that entitled her to the status of one of the prominent writers during this important period of Egyptian history. Finally, I wanted to figure out how this complex  investigation of her life and work will offer us an alternative narrative about women’s liberation in modern history.

The results of this project proved to be worthwhile. A more layered construction of the life of this important author—especially her adult struggles, which included major personal sacrifices and traumas—emphasized the many obstacles and difficulties which all women (including women of privilege) faced at every stage of their life cycle in breaking new ground. The examination of her published works sheds light on how the social and political systems of the time simultaneously influenced her work and illuminated the important contributions she made to the society-wide debates on social and political reform in the 1880s and 1890s. The alternative narrative set aside the old partial, patriarchal, triumphal, and male-centered modern narrative that has dominated our understanding of the changing gender roles of this period. It offered in its place a more dynamic one that focused attention on the important sacrifices and contributions made by the women as they pushed for expanded participation in the affairs of their societies. 

J: What particular topics, issues and literatures does it address?

MH: The interdisciplinary character of this book shaped the definitions of its topics, issues, and literatures. As a political scientist by training, I was interested in contextualizing Taymur’s life and work and examining how both added to our understanding of the political, social, linguistic, and literary transitions from an Ottoman Islamic community to a more narrowly national one. Taymur’s biography, especially her family’s history and social class milieu, showed the complex multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic makeup of the political classes that ruled the Ottoman Empire and its provinces in the nineteenth century. Her parents were of Kurdish and Circassian ancestry, and her early education emphasized the three languages (Turkish, Persian and Arabic) associated with Ottoman government and literary production, including prose and religion, that set them apart from other communities. I used the changing fortunes of these languages in the second half of the nineteenth century to show the gradual decline of the Ottoman political community and the development of a new national one that relied on Arabic as the new language of government and education, as well as of the majority of Egyptians.  

Next, I examined the heterogeneous literary map of this important period, which included the works written in the indigenous maqama style and the important Turkish and Arabic translations of Abe Fenelon’s Les Aventures de Telemaque, as well as some of the early attempts to write an Arabic novel, to discuss the existence of different forms of representing the concerns of the community and how it was being imagined in hybrid old and new ways. This made it possible to weave Taymur’s work of fiction, Nata’ij al-Ahwal fi al-Aqwal wa al-Af`al (1887); her social commentary, Mir’at al-Ta’mul fi al-Umur (1892); and her collected Arabic poems, Hilyat al-Tiraz  (1892) into this fast changing literary scene.

In a parallel vein, I looked at how the turbulent 1870s and 1880s, which witnessed the forced abdication of Khedive Ismail, his replacement by his son Tewfik, and the onset of British occupation, left their imprints on the literary works produced in the 1880s. For example, Ali Mubarak’s `Alam al-Din sought to explore the differences between the Orient and the Occident in the exchanges between a Muslim sheikh and an English orientalist who travel to France; this indicates the changing terrain on which these conversations were taking place and the relations of power between them. In contrast, Taymur’s work of fiction Nata’ij al-Ahwal fi al-Aqwal wa al-Af`al (The Consequences of the Changing Speech and Practice), published in 1887, addressed itself to the crisis of the dynastic government and how its reform included the prince’s embrace of self-discipline and the nationalization of his government, a redefinition of his relations with his courtiers, the propertied class, building bridges with his “people,” and a new reliance on the political royal couple as a new pillar of government.

Finally, Taymur’s Mir`at al-Ta’mul fi al-Umur, published in 1892, took on the equally daring ijtihad (reinterpretation) of a key Qur’anic verse that she claimed was dealing with the gender rights that men and women have in the family. She explained that she took on this task because of the destabilizing changes taking place in families of different social classes that signaled males abdicating their responsibilities and leadership roles in that key institution. The book provoked public debate with an Azharite sheikh, who took issue with Taymur’s interpretations, as well as with Abdallah al-Nadim, the key nationalist figure of the period, who praised it. I argue that this debate, not the one that Qasim Amin’s book The Liberation of the Woman fueled in 1899, was the first important public debate on gender roles and issues. What distinguished the former debate from the latter was that a woman (Taymur) took the initiative in opening up the discussion of gender rights in Islam and in the family, making women active subjects instead of the mere objects who appear in male discussions.

J: How does this work connect to and/or depart from your previous research and writings?

MH: I have always had an interest in history and the way it shapes the politics and the agency/consciousness of various gender groups and actors. My work has also always emphasized the use of interdisciplinary approaches that characterize the work of most students of gender studies. This book represented a continuation of these substantive, theoretical, and methodological concerns. It has, however, a distinct broader and overarching concern: the examination of how the comparative development of new definitions of community in the Ottoman center and one of its provinces (Egypt) led to two different routes to modern nation- building. I make that argument through the nuanced and critical discussion of an aspect of Benedict Anderson’s work on Imagined Communities that has not been discussed in Middle East studies—that is, the contribution that the novel (and I would add other forms of fictional works) made to the representation of modern national communities. I think it is fair to say that nineteenth-century Arabic and Turkish literary productions provoked society-wide debate about the reform of the Turkish and the Arabic languages as new markers of the development of modern and smaller national communities. This contributed to the nationalization of the Ottoman Empire, providing two different routes to nation-building. In the case of Egypt, the use of Arabic as the increasingly dominant language of education and then of government enhanced the accelerating development of a politically autonomous, smaller Arabic-speaking national community within the Ottoman system. At the Ottoman center, the call for the reform of the Turkish language seemed to be designed to create a nation at the heart of the far-fledged multi-ethnic and multilingual empire. Both of these larger political and cultural processes had implications for the discussions of the new gender roles of women and men as other markers of the new communities.

Anderson conceptualized modern imagined communities as horizontal fraternities, but he was frequently criticized for not having developed this gender aspect of his work. In this book, I am preoccupied with how these fraternities worked—that is, the forms of social solidarity they contributed and the gender discourses with which they were associated. In addition to the exploration of the changing definition of femininity and masculinity during this period offered in Taymur’s work of fiction, I look at how sheikhs Abdallah al-Fayumi, the Azharite sheikh who criticized Taymur’s work, and Abdallah al-Nadim, who praised it, offered  modern definitions of fraternity. Both used the discussion of women in general (and Taymur in particular), who were not related to them by kinship, as a new source of privilege that they claimed as male members of a gender group, that is, a fraternity. This modern definition of fraternity compared with earlier ones that can be found in the Islamic religious tradition. It adds a very important dimension to our understanding of the modern debates on gender where men discuss women among themselves. This development did not only take place in Egypt, but was also observed by women analysts in Europe. Up until now, historians have dealt with these modern debates as though they are simply about women (which they are), ignoring the fact that they are also about how groups of men have tended in modern times to cement ties of similarity and difference among themselves by exercising the modern prerogative of being able to make general claims about women as a group. Sheikh Fayumi, Taymur’s critic, breaks with the medieval Islamic interpretations of the concept of leadership in the family, which was dependent on their obligations as providers, to suggest that men were entitled to leadership not because of what they provide, but because they were men.

J: Who do you hope will read this book and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

MH: One of the benefits of doing interdisciplinary work is that it can appeal to multiple audiences. In this case, I can see this book as attracting students of political science, history, literature, and of course women’s studies. Political scientists may be interested in a work that takes as its primary focus of analysis the way literary works can play a distinct and important role in the development of the imagining of the community. They offer discussions of its sociology, history, materiality, and the roles that men and women play in it. Anderson suggested that the novel helped in the original imagining of the community, but I would add that its changing role has not been fully theorized. In particular, this means addressing how the novel continues to provide illuminating insights into our understanding of the changes within a community, especially when used by male and female writers who discuss their gender experiences and roles in the family and the community, issues that are generally not well covered in political or sociological studies.

Given the importance I attach to the role of literary works in nation building, I also hope that students of literature can find in the framework that I offer for understanding the changes taking place in the literary forms, language, and genres in the region at mid-century a different approach than the modern one. The latter dismisses in very harsh terms earlier forms of fiction as less worthy of study on their own terms or as an important sources of the changes taking place in the language, literary forms, and the substantive themes and preoccupations of the writers and their readers.

Historians may find the comparative transition to nation building in the Middle East helpful and useful. I think Middle East historians have increasingly encouraged us to connect the study of the Ottoman center and its periphery for an additional appreciation of the complicated and comparative processes of change taking place during the nineteenth century at either end of this regional picture. I think this book adds to the expanding literature that takes critical views of some of the assumptions that students of the region make about the effects that modernity has had on the region. While modernity is taken by some as having underlined the need for change, the changes associated with it were far from unambiguously positive or negative. They are certainly important enough to disentangle and study. The part of this process of change that appeals to me is the unpacking of the interaction between the old and the new without attaching a predetermined normative value on the outcome.  

Last but not least, I hope that students of women’s studies in general, and Middle East women’s studies in particular, will find this book to be of interest. At the heart of the book is the biography of Taymur, a nineteenth-century woman writer, whose struggles to find her voice and to participate in the affairs of her society will be hauntingly familiar but also different, reflecting the specificities of her time, class standing, and individual history. I think the modern definitions of women’s roles that have largely emphasized women’s roles in the family and the rearing of children as key and self-affirming will also find that for those who chose to take a different route, the social and familial social censure was severe.

Taymur’s interests in the high politics of her time and in religious interpretations may seem unusual, but they challenge us to expand the boundaries of what was possible for women in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. More importantly, her life and work can now help us to challenge the male-centric construction of Egyptian women’s history so that it begins with women—not just Taymur, but also the minor figures who appear in her life and work: the blind Fatima al-Azhariya, who taught her Arabic grammar, and Sitatta al-Tablawiya, who taught her poetic meter, as her adult tutors, as well as the slaves and household servants who Taymur cited in her social commentary as playing in an important role in the lives of their mistresses. In the sexually segregated world that she inhabited, these other women, and especially her daughter, helped her resume her literary studies and emerge as a prominent author. She paid them back in some small way by writing about the plight of women of all classes in the face of new modern definitions of masculinity that encouraged men, not to be providers, but to thoughtlessly treat the property of their wives as their own, to be spent on new sources of entertainment (bars and singers) and new forms of consumption (alcohol).

J: What other projects are you working on now?  

MH: I have a couple of projects that I am working on. I have written many articles and book chapters on the effects that economic globalization has had on the Middle East (its class, gender, and generational divides) and how the region has responded to these effects by shaping the politics of globalization. In almost all of these articles, I discuss the ways in which gender relations or roles have been affected by the politics and economics of globalization, but also about the alliances and tensions between Middle East feminists and their Western counterparts and how they used gender in the representation of their views of global policies and relations.  

The second project deals with gender and revolution in the Middle East. For me, the Arab spring has offered a rare opportunity for the examination of how our theories on gender and revolution capture (or fail to make sense of) the dynamics of change taking place on the ground. I have not decided yet if this book will be comparative (taking Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen as cases in point), or will just focus on Egypt.

Excerpts from Literature, Gender, and Nation-Building in Nineteenth-Century Egypt: The Life and Works of `A’sha Taymur

Fraternity and the Nationalization of Islamic Government

Taymur turned next to the discussion of the development of fraternal bonds as basis of national government. For her this required movement away from the pre modern vertical and hierarchical dynastic political community, which in an Egyptian context referred to the Mamluk master-slave model, with its definition of the relations between the prince and king, the political class and the larger population he ruled. This transition was a difficult one because it seemed to be fraught with potential political threats from these groups. Yet failure in this transition posed equally serious dangers. So Taymur began to discuss in great detail the process by which the relations among three important political actors (the prince and king, the political class which helps him to govern-and the rest of the population) could contribute to horizontal national fraternities.

The discrediting of kinship (maternal and paternal) bonds as a basis for the political operation of government, which served as the starting point of the story of prince Mamduh, was generally associated with the rise of civil forms of modern government characterized by the more egalitarian fraternal relations among men of different classes. Mamduh’s changing relations with Malik [his vizir] and `Aqeel [his courtier] as well as those with his subjects offered insights into the nationalization of dynastic government. While the narrative began with Malik and `Aqeel defining themselves as slaves of the monarchy, [his father’s] decision to put them in charge of the prince’s education signaled the beginning of the abandonment of the old master-slave model that guided the absolute form of dynastic government in favor of a more fraternal model. Dushnam and Ghadur’s [members of the princely government] influence over Mamduh was also part of this transition to the fraternal mode underlining some of its sources of danger. By encouraging Mamduh to resent the power and authority of his counselors, they hoped to improve their position with him and/or eventually to usurp the throne. The result was a return to personalized or absolute rule in which Mamduh was contemptuous of all the members of the political class as well as most of his subjects. He refused all contact with anyone who was enslaved, be they white of black. He considered it to be beneath his dignity to deal with freed white slaves who attained high status because that did not wipe out the fact that they were bought for a price like animals. He was also brutal in his treatment of African slaves considering their skin color to be akin to misfortune. Finally, Mamduh was also cruel to the needy (arbab al-hajat), who approached him with petitions to redress acts of injustice, treating them as low lives, and common criminals only worthy of more punishment. Under this extremely hierarchical dynastic form of government, it was very easy for Dushnam and Ghadur to usurp the power of the politically isolated prince who had no other basis or source of political support.

In one of the most significant political speeches in the frame story, Malik sought to offer Mamduh his views of how the general public can provide him with a reliable frame of reference in evaluating the advice of his counselors and courtiers. The following was the most important fragment of the long speech:

He who wishes to evaluate the advice given to him by other, must accept as truthful that which is familiar to the common folk [al-`amma]…Whatever is met with the peoples’ [al-nas] approval should be followed and that which they censure should be avoided. A rational man should follow the examples set by others.[1]

Malik gave the social standards of al-`amma and al-nas a paramount role to play in the social education of the prince and his ability to evaluate the advice he received from his counselors. To protect himself from the hypocrisy of friends and foes, the prince needed to test their views and opinions against the sensibilities of the masses and/or the people to distinguish good from bad counselors and right from wrong. As such, the masses were the arbiters of proper behavior and the prince had to conform to the standards they set for the community. Following the social practices of the majority provided the basis of rational ideological and political behavior because of the social injunction to benefit from the experiences of others. This was an interesting theoretical role reversal which transformed the nineteenth century assumed passive role of the masses (al-`amma) and the people (al-nas) into a more active one that set the ethical and social standards of royal behavior. In emphasizing these new linkages between the prince and his subjects, Malik offered the bases of modern princely government, which redefined the relations between the prince and his subjects transforming the monarchy into a national institution. Modern dynastic government sought to make itself part of the social fabric. The ability of the prince to see himself in  al-`amma and al-nas and vice versa contributed a major departure in the definition of Islamic dynastic government. 

…

Taymur as Viewed by her Contemporaries

Shaykh Abdallah al-Fayumi was a member of the ulema class who also had an active interest in literature reflecting earlier ideals of learning, which grounded all forms of literary writing in the study of the Qura’nic text as the paragon of the Arabic language. In the long introduction to his response to Taymur’s [Mir’at al-Ta’mul fi al-Umur] titled Lisan al-Jumhur fi Mir’at al-Ta’mul fi al-Umur, he offered the following interesting account of how the literary circles reacted to Taymur’s work and the effort to recruit him for a response.

I attended a literary gathering with many other discussing lofty issues that were both old and new. As we began to disperse, a sincere friend approached me and shared an “amazing report.” He said: “I had read a beautiful work titled Mir’at al-Ta’mul fi al-Umur written by `A’isha Taymur, the daughter of Ismail Pasha Taymur, whose poetic and fictional works established her reputations as a model for others. Many of her peers acknowledge that if all women were like her, then they would be preferred to men…While her literary skills and her accomplishments could not be disputed, [her latest work] showed that this acclaim had gone to her head leading her astray into areas where she should not have ventured. While it was the duty of the literary writers and the men of religion to give advice and to guide the community, God singled out the wise men of each generation for this important obligation. These men struggled to advise the nation, help it reach happiness and develop its sources of wealth sacrificing their souls to the comfort of the public.

A Qura’nic verse that underlined the importance of the community stated: “let there be among you a community (umma) that calls for goodness, commands right and forbids wrong.” The prophet reiterated that theme describing “religion as advice. People asked him: who should deliver it? He answered: God, the prophet, religious leaders and the ordinary Muslims.” It was particularly important to speak out about matters which if not addressed would lead to the violation of the sacred canon and practice. At the outset [of Mir’at al-Ta’mul fi al-Umur], Taymur engaged an imaginary learned religious man (`alama) in the explanation of her views. We waited for a member of the ulema to respond to her call [for an exchange], but no one has bothered to withdraw their swords in response. [The friend] declared he was busy with other serious battles and appealed to me to take on that burden.

I declared myself to be similarly occupied and added that I had despaired of worldly occupations, separated myself from both the riffraff and the astute and gave up on people [observing how] a brother [could not be trusted] and friendships turned sour. Mountains of ignorant men, who occupied the place of honor in government agencies, became fat and arrogant overshadowing those who were learned filling these different arenas with multiple expressions of diseased brotherhood.

[The friend ] answered that matters have reached a climax and you must answer this call [issued by Taymur] offering effective medicine to this general malady. I said that I feared that I might [in going after her] face an early death, but he reassured me that in this case I was going to be rewarded against my will.[2]

NOTES
[1] `A’isha Taymur, Nata’ij al-Ahwal fi al-Aqwal wa al-Af`al (Cairo: Matba`at Mohammed Effendi Mustafa, 1887/8).
[2] Shaykh Abdallah al-Fayumi, Lisan al-Jumhur `ala Mir’at al-Ta’mul fi al-Umur (Cairo: Multaqa al-Mar’at wa al-Thakira, 2002), 48-50.

[Excerpted from Mervat F. Hatem, Literature, Gender and Nation-Building in Nineteenth Century Egypt: The Life and Works of `A’sha Taymur, 92-93, 130-31. © 2011 by Mervat F. Hatem. Excerpted by permission of the author. For more information, or to purchase this book, click here.]

Nergis Ertürk, Grammatology and Literary Modernity in Turkey. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book?

Nergis Ertürk (NE): One of my motives was to try to deepen our understanding of the phoneticizing Turkish alphabet reform of 1928, which replaced a Perso-Arabic script with a Latin alphabet, as well the language reforms of the 1930s, which replaced many Arabic and Persian loanwords with Turkish neologisms. Of the effects of these reforms, the Romance philologist Erich Auerbach observed in a letter to Walter Benjamin dated 3 January 1937 that “no one under twenty-five can any longer understand any sort of religious, literary, or philosophical text more than ten years old.” While it would be inaccurate to describe these reforms as a complete success, they did ensure that the next generation of Turkish-speaking citizens of Turkey would, for example, be unable to read even the inscriptions on buildings and monuments that they pass every day, let alone written and printed materials. And of course citizens of Turkey today are even further alienated from that written past. So the book was, you might say, an attempt to “make sense of” that profound linguistic rupture, if such a thing is possible, and to witness that rupture in the work of Turkish writers, who mourned what it destroyed even as they sometimes welcomed it for other reasons.

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures does it address?

NE: The book begins by situating these reforms within a longer history of Ottoman Turkish linguistic modernization going back to the mid-nineteenth century. That history perhaps represents not simple progress as we conventionally understand it, with its sense of inevitability, so much as it is structured by epistemic shifts in conceptions of language and writing. I understand such shifts as the very conditions of possibility of the reforms. And one of my other goals in the book is to offer a close reading of works of modern Turkish literature that record those conditions of possibility as their own. We have very valuable histories of these reforms by Agâh Sırrı Levend, Geoffrey Lewis, and İlker Aytürk, among others, and I have made extensive use of them in my work in this book. My own contribution is to trace that history in these works of literature, which provide us with their own accounts of historical conditions even as they are they determined by them.

A conventional and still common historiographic approach to written documents is to treat them as produced for the neutral purpose of communication, by language understood narrowly as a kind of instrument. But what one finds in the early writings of someone like Ahmed Midhat, for example, is a much more complex notion of linguistic communication, something that goes beyond just the transmission of meaning. Works of literature of this period, a time of accelerated growth in print culture and translation activity, tend to imagine the Turkish language as a force producing unpredictable effects, more than as an instrument with a narrowly defined purpose. This is perhaps a variation on what one finds in so-called “religious communication,” except that rather than metaphysical, language’s power to make connections is now also strongly topographic and geographic, linking its users to unseen and unheard-of foreign places, both within and beyond Europe.

Some of those unpredictable effects include the breakdown of social, political, and linguistic institutions and their hierarchies of authority. Many writers found that process fascinating, even titillating, but also profoundly frightening. For what we might say was uncovered by these linguistic upheavals of the mid-nineteenth century was the fundamental arbitrariness of language and of the identity founded on it. In a historical context combining the encroachment of an imperial “Europe” with the ascendance of other kinds of linguistic nationalism, this unbearable discovery would produce very violent effects. My argument is that the release, so to speak, of a “Turkic” element from within a composite Ottoman Turkish language, and the recoding of that element as “native” national language, is one of those effects—and that we cannot understand the language reforms and accompanying suppression of non-Turkish languages in Turkey outside of this history of communication and its psychodynamic of fear. It is not a simplistic and reductive narrative of Westernization that we are talking about here, but rather an attempt to control the Turkish language and to suppress released “open” communicability for the sake of a united nation.

So, I wanted both to provide a literary interpretation of the language reforms, the one offered us by literary works themselves, and also to situate the institution of modern Turkish literature itself in this linguistic history. In the end, modern Turkish literature does not simply “represent” this profound and violent change as much as it records it as a shift in the conditions of its own possibility, in the conditions of possibility of a written literature. This asks us to read such works against the grain of certain disciplinary intellectual prejudices—against, for example, the idea that the history of literature is the history of genres or of “movements” composed of individual writers and groups of writers who influence one another. Because such prejudices actually encourage us to ignore language itself as the medium of literature, attempting to look “through” it to a history we believe it transparently represents, they keep us from grasping something more basic and obvious, if not necessarily easier to understand. But that’s not to say that we are talking in some way about language in and of itself; rather, as I demonstrate in the book, literature’s constitution by the uncanniness of language makes it positively revolutionary in relation to the modern identitarian concept of the nation. In other words, literature creates its own historical effects. This is something I wanted to make clear.

J: Who do you hope will read this book, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

NE: Of course, I hope the book will be read by specialists in modern Turkish literature, as well as by anyone with a general interest in modern Turkish literature. There is something in the book also for readers who have followed debates of the last decade or so, around the nature and grounding concept of comparison in comparative and world literature. One dangerous temptation within comparative literature as a discipline, today, is to incorporate extra-European literatures into an expanded “global” canon without paying any real attention to the particularities of linguistic history that produced them. This is something I very much oppose.

As the title of the book itself suggests, there is something in it for readers interested in the intellectual legacy of a certain group of philosophers and “theorists” including Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Maurice Blanchot, and Paul de Man—in what kind of continuing life their thought might have outside the mostly European context that generated it. But at a more fundamental level, I would say that the book is an attempt to bridge the gap between area studies, as dominated by cultural anthropology and historiography, and literary studies as dominated by the study of language and specifically linguistic artifacts. With the exception of some of the work of Benedict Anderson, I would say that literary studies has really failed to engage the work of cultural anthropologists and historians who are deeply attentive to literary and linguistic questions of genre, vernacularization, and translation, and to simultaneously philosophical and sociolinguistic concepts like logocentrism and phonocentrism. Working in different contexts (Yemen, Egypt, the Philippines, and Indonesia), thinkers like Brinkley Messick, Timothy Mitchell, Vicente Rafael, and James T. Siegel have all produced vital and important work in this vein. My book is an attempt to bring literary studies into conversation with these interlocutors in particular.

Beyond an academic context, I hope my book will add to a conversation about language rights both within Turkey and outside it. In the end, the history of the Turkish language reforms teaches us that it is impossible ever to fully control a so-called mother tongue and to keep it pure. We need to keep learning this lesson, if we are to learn to accept and to affirm the inherent difference and impurity in language, and work toward the the possibility of an alternative, non-identitarian, non-possessive relation to the so-called mother tongue, toward opening oneself to other languages of a plurilingual common. One might say this is the real challenge confronting English speakers in the United States, German speakers in Germany, and Turkish speakers in Turkey, today, confronting their Spanish-speaking, Turkish-speaking, and Kurdish-speaking compatriots. What is necessary, I argue in the book’s conclusion, is to break the identitarian bond to the so-called mother tongue and embrace the other languages of a plurilingual common as if they were one’s own.

J: In the book, you argue for "rethink[ing] the history of modern Turkish literature . . . against the critical conceit through which modern Turkish literature is tutored by European genres" through a move towards focusing on "the transformation of Turkish writing by the rise of new print and translational technologies." What led you towards this argument, and how has it been received?

NE: Thank you for this question. I believe I have partly addressed it above, but let me add this. It was works of literature themselves that led me to this argument. I was struck, for example, by the way in which Ahmed Midhat uses the word roman (novel) not literally, as a designator of a particular form, but figuratively, as an image of mediation: that is to say of language itself, understood as something that brings news (or gossip) in its travels. At some level, this simply obviates some of the routine procedures of literary scholarship, by which I mean methods and categories like genre or “movement” applied largely without asking oneself why one is applying them, or questioning their usefulness for a particular task. It requires us to think literary history as a history not so much of objects created by writing as of the history of writing itself, including epistemic shifts in its practice, such as changes in script or alphabet and radical lexical regulation. And if that is the case, we simply cannot take for granted the extensibility of European literary-historiographic concepts of genre and movement, for example, to Turkish literature. In some ways, those concepts only make sense after the introduction of what in the book I call a phonocentric conception of writing. And so in a way this demands that we push our thinking of the stakes of literature beyond what is offered by traditional literary scholarship.

J: What other projects are you working on now?

NE: I’m working on a book to be entitled Modernity, Translation, and the Literatures of Revolution, which will explore literary exchange between Ottoman Turkish and Turkic-speaking Russian Muslim intellectuals and writers during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Despite its both geopolitical and literary significance, west Asia is still an understudied area in postcolonial studies and comparative literature, and I hope to change that.  

Excerpt from Grammatology and Literary Modernity in Turkey

From the Introduction: “اول, Be or Die: The Stakes of Phonocentrism”

In The Turkish Language Reform: A Catastrophic Success, Geoffrey Lewis refers to what he calls a “shrewd” observation made by the British diplomat Sir Charles Eliot (1862–1931), author (under the pseudonym Odysseus) of the political history Turkey in Europe, regarding the difficulties posed for Ottoman Turkish speakers by the Perso-Arabic script in which the language was written. Eliot observed that because the script’s vowels were insufficient for rendering Turkish pronunciation, the Turkish word اوﻠﺩﻯ written in what Eliot called the Arabic alphabet, could be read in two blatantly and mutually contradictory ways: as either oldu (he became), or öldü (he died). In Eliot’s view, Arabic script, naturally “adapted to the Arabic language, which has a multiplicity of strange consonants and a peculiar grammatical system which renders it unnecessary to write the vowels fully,” was the “least fitted” of all possibilities for writing Turkish, with its “few consonants and many vowels.” 

In its devotion to the exemplary, I will suggest in this book, such commentary is staked on a broader discourse shaping the fundamentals of Turkish linguistic modernization through its various stages. What entices the contemporary Orientalist, approaching his subject as (in this case) something of a source of entertainment for the reader less than familiar with the history of the Turkish language, is the seemingly quintessential and definitive dimension of the given example. Still, we might observe that there is something in the particular example chosen by Eliot (and reanimated by Lewis, here), that places intense pressure on the concept and the comparative logic of exemplariness, itself. The literally invisible contrast, in written Ottoman Turkish, between the developmental or progressive assertion “he became” and the decadent assertion “he died” suggests not a positive linguistic-historical fact, readily appropriable for critical-historiographic illustration, but rather something of a twilight world, the world of life and writing in a language itself dead and alive, at the same time. In returning our attention to the annihilating power of death, in a modernity that strenuously seeks to fix writing’s ability to record and guarantee the stable “life” of knowledge or truth, Eliot’s example invokes an uneasiness that is not easy to shake off.

Indeed, the astonished laughter intended to be evoked, by Lewis’s highly scripted management of this exoticized anecdote, might be compared with that described by Foucault in The Order of Things, where it is occasioned by a passage from Jorge Luis Borges’s “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins” regarding a “certain Chinese encyclopedia” constructed with arbitrary categories of classification. Such laughter has its uncomfortable source, Foucault writes, in

the suspicion that there is a worse kind of disorder than that of the incongruous, the linking together of things that are inappropriate; I mean the disorder . . . of the heteroclite . . .: in such a state, things are “laid,” “placed,” “arranged” in sites so very different from one another that it is impossible to find a place of residence for them, to define a common locus beneath them all.

For Foucault, such “shattering,” “disturbing,” and “threatening” uneasiness is profoundly related to the “distress of those whose language has been destroyed,” in their “loss of what is ‘common’ to place and name. Atopia. Aphasia.”

Read against the grain, Lewis’s juxtaposition (through Eliot) of life with death, in the non-place of a “heteroclitic” modern writing, suggests that the real energies of Turkish linguistic modernization were never directed solely at writing in the narrowest technical sense of the term. Above and beyond such positive objects and goals, the Turkish language reforms disclosed a kind of mad fantasy, which is in no way unique to the Turkish context—though the foundation of the Turkish Republic does give us a specific form or model of its intensity. That fantasy is modern man’s fantasy of immobilizing the threat of that constitutive (and fatal) indeterminacy that is always immanent in writing, and of creating, through writing’s reform, an ontology freed of death. Without a doubt, in the same way that this irreducible alterity is externalized, for Borges and for Foucault, in the figure of “a certain Chinese encyclopedia,” and for Eliot and Lewis in the exotic life/death confusion of Arabic writing, Turkish linguistic modernization, I will suggest, necessarily touches the discomfiting question of ethnocentrism. For we might say that the fear of illegible writing, in the world of discourse, is always a symptom of the fear of the “illegible” social other(s) within the social body itself. That is also a question that bears on the special particularities of what we call literature, and its study in what are always and unavoidably universalizing critical modes. Despite and against the attempt to disavow literature, in the challenge it poses to those modes, in a very much active and ongoing contemporary strife of the faculties, I will suggest that the “strange institution called literature” comprises a unique archive of the violent effects of this mad modern fantasy.

[Excerpted from Nergis Ertürk, Grammatology and Literary Modernity in Turkey, 3-5, 182-84. © 2011 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Excerpted by permission of the author. For more information, or to purchase this book, click here.]

We went back to Hama after our first post-massacre visit. Three weeks later, the magnitude of destruction had become more apparent. 

The Kilani district had been flattened, and a brick wall was being built around it. Assad banned survivors from the historic site from returning to their homes. Rumors spread that a hotel would be erected over the site. (It was completed years later.) My father’s and grandmother’s graves in their once sacred cemeteries were to disappear with thousands of others, as public, stepped parks were planned to take their place. The Azm Palace, which was built in the eighteenth century and was the official museum of the city, was severely damaged. Its iconic red dome was half destroyed, and its treasures were looted. Because of extensive damage, the museum was temporarily moved to Abulfida Mosque, one of three surviving mosques in various states of damage. The Grand Mosque—considered the most ancient site in the city, if not the entire country—had been reduced to a heap of rocks after an Assad general had decided its fate so. 

Unlike our first visit three weeks ago, we saw people walking down the streets of Hama. We reached a big crowd watching the demolition of the largest new cathedral. This cathedral and the Grand Mosque were detonated simultaneously at the end of February. The two explosions, according to many accounts, severely shook the city. One arch of the cathedral’s huge edifice was resistant to a bulldozer's many attempts to destroy it. We were standing along with the priest in his traditional black dress until the arch fell, stirring a massive cloud of dust. We passed by a public bath from the Ottoman era, where an unknown number of women had been kidnapped, raped, and killed by Assad soldiers. An eerie feeling overcame me every time I walked by, sneaking into the dark depths of the locked and deserted building.

The people of Hama differentiated between two elements of Assad’s forces: the regular army on the one hand, and on the other, the Defense Brigades and Special Forces. The latter had committed most of the atrocities. You could see their insignia spray-painted on the walls everywhere. Most of the forty thousand killed in Hama were systematically massacred not by air and ground bombardment, but after Hafez al-Assad’s forces took control of the city district  by district. An unknown number of children were transferred to specific mosques in Homs and Aleppo—for adoption. The booty from looted houses was used to furnish the houses of Assad’s generals and soldiers or was placed for sale in other towns.

Hama was gradually transformed. Street lights were glaring, and the roar and whistles of construction machines  infiltrated the city’s calmness. Minarets were still absent from its skyline. The city’s destruction was so obvious that it seemed Assad wanted to warn the rest of Syria of what could be a similar fate.

By the time summer arrived, the famous water wheels were rotating once again. A feeling of normalcy prevailed, though disrupted with more flattened areas on the city map. 

Ramadan was in the summer that year, and the mosques were cleaned of the aftermath of destruction. Small rooms or courtyards with no roofs were prepared for Ramadan nightly prayers. The crowded mosques gave a false reassurance that the number of people who had been killed was not that high. We wanted to have that false hope as well, but the wintery end of the year proved otherwise. The city by then appeared deserted. Many were slaughtered; many fled abroad; and remaining residents took refuge in neighboring towns and villages, mainly Homs. Only the unable stayed. 

Even the dairy products that Hama was famous for were redirected to Homs and other towns. Hama is known for its cheese, yogurt, and ghee, but not during the year after the massacre. It was heart-wrenching to see that familiar market places were no longer there. The faces of people were clearly burdened with what they observed. Their heavy silence spoke volumes.

The city was literally empty. When the cold nights of the first winter arrived, we realized the heavy toll the city had paid for its quest for freedom. The first sentence to greet somebody was, “Inshallah, no family member is lost?” or “What detention camp were you at?” Still, the stories of atrocities, rape, and torture circulated in whispers among people and kept circulating, like the ever-turning waterwheels of Hama, until now.

"God punish the one behind it," was a sentence that I heard a lot of Hamwis reiterate but refuse to elaborate upon. I knew they would never forgive Assad's atrocities. But they were also not happy with the opposition they had wholeheartedly embraced because of their mismanagement of the conflict. The sacrifice was huge, with no immediate tangible outcome. 

Still, Hama is a fire alit beneath the ash. Years will never extinguish it. All the details are in the collective memory of Hama’s populace. None will be lost. Hama is just waiting for the Day of Reckoning. Then, and only then, we will know the magnitude of the savagery of the Assad family, a savagery that took the Syrian people by surprise. The surprise was so shocking, it has taken us a generation to wake up and rise again.

“The Doves of Damascus”  spotlight on the people working for change from inside Syria

“Syria Today: Daily News Brief” A locally produced news roundup on Syria

“Syrians fleeing Homs accuse troops of atrocities” and “Why BBC journalists are in besieged Homs” The BBC on why it feels undercover reporting from Syria is necessary

“Syrian activist: its snowing and we’re shaking here” Andy Carvin’s interview with a Homs-based activist

“Syrians flee Homs for Lebanon”

“The UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay talks to Al-Jazeera about why it will not help to arm the Syrian opposition”

“UAE says Syrians expelled for breaking the law” 

“Avaaz faces questions over role at centre of Syrian protest movement” 

“Authorities scramble to avert clash over anti-Assad protest” 

“Syria: the agonies of intervention”

“The Elders call for an immediate halt to violence in Syria”

“Syria notebooks” an earlier detailed reportage piece from Homs now posted on the London Review of Books website, accessible with a free subscription

“The heroic myth and the uncomfortable truth of war reporting” 

“How I understand the Syrian revolution” Malik Al-Abdeh’s sectarian, and somewhat confused, take on the revolution

ICRC statement about access to Baba Amr in Syria 

“Why don’t we care about Syria?” Slate on the Syrian uprising and social media

"3OpSyria S04E02 : The Iron Strike investigation, now open for fun and profit" how US and European ICT companies helped the Syrian regime

Humanitarian situation in Syria and the UN on Al-Jazeera’s behind the news

 In Arabic

"السعودية وقطرتصعّدان.. وواشنطن تورطهما أكثر …سورية نجحت في التحدي الديمقراطي"

كيف تدعو السعودية وقطر للديمقراطية؟!

"هــل صـعــدت قـطــر «بـالصـدفــة»؟"

السفير: قطر لم تألف يوماً تجارب ديمقراطية ولكن دورها الرئيسي أتى بغياب مصر والجزائر والسعودية والمغرب

"ميشيل كيلو: نجـاح الثـورة يتوقـف علـى تصحيـح مساراتهـا"

"تحليل: ماذا تقول الحركة المناهضة للثورة السورية؟" 

"أسعد أبو خليل: نعم هناك <مؤامرات> على سوريا"

من العربي الغاضب: المؤامرة ليست كما نعتقد 

"الانتفاضة السورية: مكتوفة في اليمّ.. ممنوعة من البلل! صبحي حديدي"

"لافروف.. لافروف! ميشيلكيلو" 

Michel Kilo presents his criticism of the Syrian National Council.

سوريا: حالة لعدم التدخل

A case against foreign military intervention.

الدستور ونهاية الإصلاح في سوريا

Why the referendum on a new draft constitution in Syria is too little, and too late.

المعرضة السورية و مطلب الاستعانة بالخارج

The history of the Syrian opposition's willingness to seek foreign assistance in order to push its agenda.

نعم هناك مؤامرات على سوريا

Asad Abu Khalil offers a critical standpoint of the Syrian National Council and asserts that there are outside "conspiracies" over the current situation in Syria. 

أهم أعمدة المرحلة الانتقالية في سورية

The author offers his account of the most important issues to keep in mind during the transitional period in Syria.

Recent Jadaliyya Articles on Syria: 

Hama: Post-Massacre

نجـاح الثـورة يتوقـف علـى تصحيـح مساراتهـا

The Left and the People: Extending Hamid Dabashi's Critique

أين المثقفون السوريون من الثورة؟

The End of Taking the Syrian Revolution at Face Value 

Finding Bayt Across Borders of Stone

First, let us be clear: the Syrian people have every right to protest, peacefully and violently, against the brutal regime. And let us be clear: the Syrian regime has no right to stay in power, and this was true even before it began using violence to quell the uprising. And let us be clear: the Syrian regime is incapable of reforming itself.

It is rather foolish to wait for a group to ascend to power before criticizing it. There was no mystery as to the intentions and agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood or the Salafis, or even the Khomeini movement, before their taking the reigns of power. Similarly, the adversaries of the Ba‘th Party began opposing it long before the former began conspiring to seize power by force. Today, it is imperative that an opposition to the Syrian National Council begins (and to the power behind it and underneath it) before they get a chance to rule Syria. This NATO supported movement does not really differ from the NATO-supported movement that served as a tool of NATO in Libya. The writing was on the wall before the Qadhdhafi regime fell, and those who supported the NATO intervention in Libya are now trying—á la Thomas Friedman after he supported the Iraq war in 2003—to re-write their own political history and to deny that they really had supported the NATO military intervention.

The opposition to the Syrian National Council (SNC) can be predicated on several factors, primarily relating to matters of credibility, consistency, and honesty.

The Syrian National Council has already lied to the Syrian people repeatedly. There are many examples that can be summarized below.  

1. It started as a movement that strictly adhered to non-violent struggle and now it has a military council to coordinate the violent overthrow of the regime by force (and this without in any way detracting from the right of the Syrian people—and all other Arab people—to overthrow by any means necessary the regime under which they live and suffer). Worse, the SNC now wants violence to be done by Syrians and by whoever else (Israelis too?) interested in overthrowing the regime.
2. The SNC first categorically rejected any political preferences in the Lebanese political conflict. Burhan Ghalyun famously said: keep us out of your conflicts in Lebanon. Now, the SNC is a close ally of the March 14 movement and it has issued political statements in support of this Hariri movement.
3. The SNC said it strictly opposed foreign intervention while it now begs for foreign intervention from any side—preferably allies of the US and Israel.
4. The SNC leadership said on a few occasions that the percentage of the Ikhwan in the SNC is no more than twenty percent. Yet, Ghalyun in several private meetings (including an off-the-record session with an Arab journalist) complained about Ikhwan domination of the SNC and said that he would not agree to serve as another Mahmud Jibril.
5. The SNC rightly criticized the regime’s stance on the Arab-Israeli conflict and on the Golan Heights while they have basically maintained the very stance of the regime, which is to wait for the Golan to return, all by itself, to Syria’s lap, and to call for negotiations as the way to liberate the Golan. The SNC adopted the Ba‘thist government’s position before it even had a chance to establish its government. Moreover, the SNC went further and began an unprecedented (for Syrians that is) path of flirtation with Israel. Even after the revelation of Basma Qudmani’s humiliating performance on French TV (and after she lied and claimed that it was fabricated—this was after the entire session was found and made available on the internet), the SNC stayed silent.
6. The SNC claimed that it won’t serve as a tool for outsiders and said that it will only answer to the Syrian people but it has now become a tool of Saudi and Qatari ruling dynasties, among others.
7. The SNC rightly criticized the corruption of the Syrian regime but it has failed to share with the Syrian public information about its funding and how it keeps its books. Ghalyun and others timidly talk about funding from “wealthy Syrians” while other SNC members conceded that some funding from Gulf countries arrived (but they complained about the small amounts).
8. The SNC claims to work for a democratic Syria and yet its sponsors in Doha and Riyadh can hardly serve as democratic mentors.
9. The SNC claims to offer the Syrian people a vision of a “civil state” (an empty term that is intended to appease both the secularists and the Islamists while it carries no concrete political meaning), yet their Ikhwan and Saudi allies can hardly inspire confidence in that promise. The SNC wants to have it both ways. It very much reminds one of the empty promises of Khomeini before he established his clerical government. Yet this civic-minded council does not speak against its ally, the Free Syrian Army, and against its tendency to endow its battalions with religious and sectarian names.
10. The SNC rightly condemns the war crimes by the Syrian regime but it has been silent about war crimes by the Free Syrian Army (as enumerated in the recent UN report on violations of human rights in Syria).
11. The SNC first urged for the dispatch of the Arab League’s monitors and then it went against it when the report did not serve its interests and the interests of its sponsors.
12. The SNC promises democracy and political transition of power and yet failed to establish such a mechanism for its own leadership. There are various (funny) accounts of the leadership meeting that allowed Burhan Ghalyun (under threats of resignation) to serve for another term.
13. The SNC has been ineffective at best and an accomplice at worst in the sectarian killings in areas under the rule of its allies.
14. The SNC speaks of democracy and yet has already engaged in practices that are rather anti-democratic and bode ill for the future of Syria if the SNC is allowed to take over the government in Damascus. It is not forgotten that the goons of the SNC (and the SNC has goons just like the regime) attacked Syrian opposition figures who live and suffer in Syria when they visited Cairo to meet with the secretary general of the Arab League. The SNC also engages in Ba‘thist style takhwin (declaring all opponents as traitors). The SNC could not even reach an agreement with the Coordinating Committees who represent the internal opposition in Syria. In fact, Ghalyun signed an agreement with Haytham Al-Manna` of the coordinating committees, only to rescind his signature a few days later when the Ikhwan protested.

But the SNC is not the entire Syrian opposition. Though it is asking for the right to become officially and internationally the “sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people” and some protesters in Syria agree. The Asad regime seems to be adept at ruthlessly rooting out the leftist opposition inside Syria (like the Communist Action Party) ,killing their leaders and arresting or killing their members. The assassination by a regime goon of Husayn ‘Uwaydat is only one example. Many leftist cadres sit in Syrian jails and they could have been effective in organizing the Syrian people along lines different from the agenda of the SNC. The cause of the Syrian people and their legitimate movement against the Asad dynasty is too important to be hijacked by any movement (domestic or foreign, although the SNC leadership is comprised mostly of people in exile).

For some reason (or for several reasons, and one of them is Zionist) people in the West, including in the progressive academic community, are very reluctant to criticize the SNC or even the Ikhwan. Worse, there are some in that community who want to convince us that Syrian opposition is entirely run by progressives. People’s choices (though whether the SNC is actually the product of such choices has yet to be proven) are not always progressive or desirable. Khomeini had mass support and the left was and is obliged to go after the Khomeini movement. There are Khomeini wanna-bes in the Syrian uprising and they should be opposed before they do more harm to the cause of the Syrian people. Moreover, there is an attempt by liberal Zionists to promote the SNC and its cause (just as they promoted the Iraqi National Congress and its cause) as a manifestation of a leftist-liberal movement (of course, Ahmad Chalabi is now reduced to ride on the coattails of Muqtada al-Sadr, of all people). It is no coincidence that the Likudnik Senator, John McCain, who was the Godfather of the Iraqi National Congress, is now serving as the Godfather of the SNC. 

There is war in Syria. And the Syrian people are now left to be victims but also bystanders. The SNC and its allies have allowed the Syrian cause to become an agenda in the foreign policies of such reactionary regimes as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, and Bahrain. The US and Israel are now engaged in a war that has nothing to do with the aspirations and desires of the Syrian people. The SNC is now on the side of the US and Israel in their plots against Syria (Syria the country and not the regime) and they have in the past had no problem in doing business with that regime during and after the Hamah massacre of 1982. In this conflict, progressives can’t sit on the sidelines, and they certainly can’t join the joint US-Israeli project. They have to stand opposed to the regime and to the Israeli/US/Saudi plot; that is the obligation for the sake of the Syrian people, and not for the sake of those who speak on their behalf for purposes that are related neither to democracy nor to freedom.

Egypt is gearing up for the final stages of a tumultuous transitional period under the rule of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) and preparing to enter a new phase following a scheduled handover of government authority to a newly-elected president at the end of June.

The much-anticipated presidential vote is scheduled to be held on 23 and 24 May to elect Egypt's first president since Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in a popular uprising one year ago. The man in charge of overseeing the poll is Farouk Sultan, the bespectacled, white-haired chair of the Supreme Constitutional Court and head of the presidential elections committee. 

Sultan was appointed by Mubarak to head the Supreme Constitutional Court in 2009 in a move that sparked controversy at the time due to his relatively modest judicial background, a lack of experience in constitutional law and a legal reputation among many as that of a regime loyalist with little independence from the executive.

“After the revolution it was expected that Sultan would be removed right away but he has remained in the same post Mubarak wanted him in,” says Nasser Amin, head of the Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary. “He represents a very big danger to the constitutional court and the presidential elections.”

Sultan spent years serving in military and state security courts, sections of Egypt's judicial apparatus more renowned for their efficiency and usefulness in working to legalize the whims of the country’s rulers than any notion of due process.

When Mubarak tapped him to head the high court in 2009, Sultan was serving as the chief justice of the Cairo Southern Court, a primary court much further down Egypt's judicial hierarchy. He was also serving as the head of the commission supervising elections at professional syndicates where he was embroiled in disputes with syndicate members and accused of hampering election procedures.

“Sultan was obstructing the elections process and some of these problems did not get solved until after the revolution,” says rights attorney Ahmed Seif Al Islam.

In the run-up to the Lawyers' Syndicate elections in 2009, Sultan stripped Islamist lawyer and chairmanship candidate Mamdouh Nouh of his membership on the grounds that he had served a three-year prison sentence after being convicted by a military court in 1999. Nouh accused Sultan of being partisan, alleging he removed him from the race to boost the chances of the Mubarak regime’s preferred candidate. Nouh contested the decision and won a ruling to keep his syndicate membership but said the court proceeding had eaten into his campaign time.

Sultan also raised concerns later in the election when he inexplicably delayed the announcement of the council seat winners, sparking accusations that the results may have been manipulated. A report compiled by the Egyptian Association for Community Participation Enhancement in 2009, expresses “concerns over delaying the board’s results, and the decision of the Court President not to allow the civil society representatives in the ballot counting. Such actions raise questions about the electoral process and invites challenge to its results.”

“Sultan played a political role in Mubarak's regime and he dealt directly with State Security Investigations,” Amin says, referring to the Egypt's notorious internal security agency. Due to his proficiency in impeding syndicate elections and fulfilling regime goals, Sultan was appointed by Mubarak to head the Supreme Constitutional Court to help usher his son, Gamal, into power in the scheduled 2011 presidential elections, according to Amin.

Regardless of the motives behind Sultan's appointment, his profile fit into a larger pattern orchestrated by Mubarak to tame the Supreme Constitutional Court by bringing in a series of chief justices less likely to cause the regime trouble. The Court had become a highly independent body in the 1980s and 90s, striking down more laws than it upheld. Around 2000, Mubarak abandoned the traditional practice of turning to the most senior member of the Court for chief justice and instead began appointing presidents from outside the Court. Mubarak’s more recent appointees tended to be less confrontational, which helped bring the body more in line with the regime.

“You could say the Supreme Constitutional Court is a less independent, much less coherent body than it was a decade and a half ago,” says Nathan Brown, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University.

Two days after Mubarak's resignation on 11 February, the SCAF dissolved parliament and the constitution. On 30 March 30 2011, the military council issued a Constitutional Declaration that extended a practice mandated by the former (1971) constitution, whereby the chief justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court is, ex-officio, also the head of the presidential elections commission. “Farouk Sultan will oversee the election process, he will announce the winner, he will do everything,” says attorney Khaled Abu Bakr, a member of the International Association of Lawyers. 

Sultan held a televised news conference on 29 February to announce the timetable for the presidential elections and stressed no international observers will be allowed to monitor the poll. Moreover, the decisions of the presidential elections commission are beyond appeal, according to a controversial article of the Constitutional Declaration. Article 28 of the Declaration stipulates that the results announced by the presidential elections committee are final, carry the force of law and are not be subject to objections from any party.

“[Article 28] has no equal in the rest of the world,” writes best-selling Egyptian author and columnist, Alaa Al Aswany. “If you saw election tampering with your own eyes, recorded it and submitted the evidence to the commission, and the commission said there was no rigging, you would have no appeal, because the commission's word is final, irreversible and incontestable."

A fiery debate broke out in the People's Assembly over Article 28 in late February with a number of MPs demanding it be amended before the elections take place. “If the presidential election is held under Article 28, then the election of Egypt’s next president will be void,” said Socialist Popular Alliance Party MP Aboul Ezz al-Hariri. “Preventing the challenge of any administrative decision is a violation of human rights.”

Egypt's presidential election season officially gets underway on 10 March, when the window opens for candidates to officially register for the race, marking another step in Egypt's rocky “transition.” Sultan, the man Mubarak controversially appointed three years ago, will be in charge of overseeing the process.

“The question of the president of the Supreme Constitutional Court is part of our larger struggle,” says Ashraf Al Baroudi, vice president of the High Court of Appeals. “In general, the revolution did not realize or accomplish its demands yet. We still have much to struggle for to change the personnel that are part of the old regime.”

In this Democracy Now! interview, Nada Bakri, the widow of Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Anthony Shadid, speaks about her husband’s passion for covering the Middle East and his posthumous memoir. "House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East" chronicles Shadid’s rebuilding of his family’s ancestral home in Lebanon. "He felt like [the Arab Spring] is a dream come true for every journalist covering the Middle East," Bakri says. "After covering it for so many years—oppression and dictatorships, wars and conflicts, and violence—finally something is changing, and something positive and optimistic." Bakri is a Lebanese-born journalist who also writes for The New York Times. [Video below transcripts.]

RUSH TRANSCRIPTS

JUAN GONZALEZ: Three weeks ago, the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times foreign correspondent Anthony Shadid died of an apparent asthma attack while reporting on the conflict in Syria. Described as the "most gifted foreign correspondent in a generation," the 43-year-old Shadid had been reporting inside Syria for a week, gathering information on the Free Syrian Army and other elements of the armed resistance to the government of President Bashar al-Assad. He died as he was attempting to sneak back into Turkey. An allergy to horses set off the fatal asthma attack.

Shadid’s work often entailed great peril. In 2002, he was shot while reporting in Ramallah in the West Bank for the Boston Globe. He spent years covering the U.S. occupation of Iraq for the Washington Post. Last March, Shadid and three other New York Times journalists were kidnapped in Libya by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s forces. They were held for six days, beaten before being released. Shortly after he was released, Anthony Shadid appeared on Democracy Now!

AMY GOODMAN: What makes you keep going back? You were shot in the shoulder in the West Bank in 2002. Why do you keep going back to war zones?

ANTHONY SHADID: You know, not to be flip, but it’s kind of pretty much the only thing I know how to do—not cover conflict. I actually don’t like covering conflict. I think you have to cover conflict when it’s part of what you do cover. And I do cover the Arab world. You know, I’ve been covering it for 15 years. I think now, finally, is the moment that we see that is transformative in the Arab world, and it does make you even more, I think, eager, in some ways, to cover, to try to bring meaning to it, to witness it. And it matters, I guess. I think at each time you make these decisions—say, in Baghdad in 2003, in Lebanon in 2006, you know, as you pointed out, in Ramallah in 2002—you think that if you’re not there, that the story won’t be told. You know, that might be a little bit arrogant or conceited. It’s absolutely—you know, it’s the only way to bring altruism to the story, that it’s not just about ambition, that you’re trying to do something that’s meaningful. You know, I hope that’s the case. It’s probably a mix of all of them together. But you do want to—I think especially people who have been covering this for a long time and who have a sense of the place, you know, I think those people want to have role, at least, in how these stories, how these conflicts, how these uprisings are covered.

AMY GOODMAN: By the way, who were you shot by in 2002?

ANTHONY SHADID: You know, there was an—the investigation was never—the Israelis did the investigation, so they couldn’t determine. In my mind, there was no one who could have shot me except for an Israeli soldier.

AMY GOODMAN: The late Anthony Shadid speaking on Democracy Now! last year.

Over the past three weeks, memorial services have been held for Anthony in Lebanon, where he lived, and Oklahoma City, where he grew up. His ashes have been buried between two olive trees at his ancestral home in the Lebanese village of Jedeidet Marjayoun. In 2007, Anthony rebuilt the family home there after it had been abandoned for decades. He wrote about the home in a memoir he completed just before his death. It’s called House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East. It was published last week. Anthony Shadid dedicated the book, quote, "To my wife Nada, daughter Laila, and son Malik. And to Jedeidet Marjayoun, as it was and will always be."

Today we’re joined by Anthony Shadid’s widow Nada Bakri. She is a Lebanese-born journalist who also writes for the New York Times and was waiting with their little son in Turkey for Anthony as he was returning from Syria.

Nada, I know this is very difficult for you to do, and we thank you so much for joining us today.

NADA BAKRI: Thank you for having me.

AMY GOODMAN: You have been through a tremendous amount over these last three weeks, including this book that Anthony wrote and was just published, this journey of your—of his rebuilding the family home. Can you start by telling us a little about who Anthony Shadid, your husband, your colleague, your friend, was?

NADA BAKRI: I met Anthony in 2006 after the Israeli war between Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon. And, you know, the first thing that just struck me about him was how—you know, I’ve always heard his name and read his stories, but I’ve never met him. And, you know, the first thing that struck me about him is how modest he was. I just could not believe that someone like him would be as modest as this, you know, in a profession where, you know, people have such big egos and successful journalists have big egos. He had none of that. And, you know, that just instantly drew me to him. And then, as I knew him more, I just realized that maybe what best characterized him is how nice he was. Whoever came knocking on his door asking for a favor, asking for a contact, asking for a tip, asking for advice, wherever it was that they would be asking from him, he made time to sit with them, to tell them what they needed to hear, and more importantly, to listen to them. You don’t see a lot of people like that. He had—he was so busy over the four, five years writing a book, covering the Middle East. Last year was really brutal. He was finishing the edits on the book. He was covering uprisings across the Arab world. And he still made time to whoever came asking for his help. You know, that’s the Anthony that I knew. He’s a hard, hard-working journalist who never turned down anyone.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And the conversations between you, especially when he would go off to one of these conflict zones, and—obviously, in the interview he did with us at Democracy Now!, he said this is part of what he does. But I’m sure the conversations, before going and then coming back, between the two of you must have been different.

NADA BAKRI: You know what? It wasn’t all that different. When I met Anthony, he was already a successful and accomplished journalist. This is what he did. And he did what he did because he loved the Middle East, he loved journalism, and he loved being a journalist in the Middle East. So it was more of a commitment to the story, to the Middle East, to the people of the Middle East and to journalism. It was never a question of, you know, "I want to be in this war zone because I like covering war so much, I like seeing death and all that." It was more, "I want to be there, because I want to see how the lives of these people are being changed. I want to document that. I want to witness it, and I want to write about it."

AMY GOODMAN: He was captured for almost a week in Libya with three other colleagues, and they were beaten, threatened, not clear if they would survive that. Can you talk about that period and coming home, and then his decision to go to Syria? Clearly, extremely dangerous for those who live there and also for reporters trying to get in.

NADA BAKRI: You know, when he called me, when they allowed him to call family members when they were being—when they were still captured in Libya, he called, and the first thing he said was how sorry he was, you know, for all his family members about the pain that he—that, you know, the capture must have caused them. And then he came home. And, you know, he saw his family members, repeated again how sorry he was that they had to go through this for him. And then, you know, he went back to work.

And again, it was not about, "I’m going to be in a dangerous place, and maybe I should not go there because it’s dangerous." You know, of course he thought about it, because he has two kids and he has a family who loved him so much, but it was more of a commitment, you know? I think it might be hard for a lot of people to understand this, but it was just a pure commitment to journalism. I have never seen anything like it. You know, after I had my son, my priorities shifted, and I did not want to be—you know, to take any risks anymore. But then again, I’m not—or I realize I’m not as committed to journalism as he is. He was just truly, genuinely committed to journalism, to covering the Middle East, in particular.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, a video has been posted online showing Anthony Shadid being interviewed by Syrian activists in the city of Idlib just hours before he died. I want to play part of what he said.

ANTHONY SHADID: [translated] I am seeing how activists are working. They work in services, media and security. I see how activists work with the Free Syrian Army. I feel that there is a new regime in Saraqib and Binnish, and this makes me happy.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And that was obviously the interview before he attempted to come back. I was really struck in reading the Tyler Hicks account of those days over there. Obviously, Tyler must have gone through an enormous emotional upheaval himself, having been captured with him once before and then having this happen. I’m wondering the conversations you’ve had with Tyler since then and how he’s doing.

AMY GOODMAN: The New York Times photographer.

NADA BAKRI: You know, I can’t speak for Tyler, but I—just like you, I can imagine that he must be in a lot of pain, you know, remembering all the events that had happened, and especially on that last day, bringing Anthony back from Turkey. You know, he—obviously, I’m very grateful for him, because he brought Anthony back and—

AMY GOODMAN: He carried his body over the border.

NADA BAKRI: Well, he didn’t—

AMY GOODMAN: Did he die in Syria or Turkey?

NADA BAKRI: He died in Syria. They were still in Syria. And so, he did bring back the body with the help of the other activists or smugglers who were bringing them back to Turkey. I’m, you know, incredibly grateful for that, and I’m also grateful that Anthony had someone with him that he could have—that he depended on, like Tyler.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain what happened in those last days. He went for a week.

NADA BAKRI: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: And when he went into Syria, he had had his first asthma attack, is that right?

NADA BAKRI: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: Coming in with the horses.

NADA BAKRI: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: And were you able to communicate with him during this period?

NADA BAKRI: You know, very briefly. The activists told him, for security reasons, that they need to be very careful on the phone. So Anthony checked twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening, for just a few minutes. They told him not to be on the phone for more than five minutes, and he never was. So, you know, the line was really bad. I could hear half of the words that he was saying, so I did not get to know all the details of the trip or, you know, how he was feeling and all that.

But the thing—the one thing that he repeated every day was that it was the best reporting trip of his life, that he was having a lot of fun, you know, gathering a lot of great material, and could not wait to get back and write the stories. You know, he had already outlined them in his mind, three stories, maybe a fourth one. You know, they were going to be great, and he was just very excited to come back and write them.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And his attachment is obviously to the Middle East. He spent so much time there. You, yourself, were born in Beirut. The conversations between you about the importance of what he was doing at this particular time and in this incredible upsurge of the Arab Spring and these popular revolts all around the Middle East, the conversations he must have had with you about the importance of his work?

NADA BAKRI: He felt very lucky that he was witnessing these uprising, that he was covering it, that he was part of this moment. He felt like, you know, this is a dream coming true for every journalist covering the Middle East. You know, after covering it for so many years—oppression and dictatorships and wars and conflicts and violence—it was finally—you know, finally, there was a—something is changing, and something positive and optimistic. He felt like it was going to take a while, but it was at least happening, you know, the change that people had for so long aspired for.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break and then come back to this discussion and talk about Anthony’s book that was published after his death, House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East, and also, Nada, speak with you about your reporting. You, too, have been covering the Middle East uprising for the past year. And also, we want to ask you what your plans are now. Nada Bakri, New York Times correspondent and now widow of Anthony Shadid, fellow correspondent at the New York Times. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is Nada Bakri. She is a New York Timescorrespondent, has been covering the uprisings in the Middle East, and she is now the widow of Anthony Shadid, who died three weeks ago today. He appeared onDemocracy Now! last April, soon after he was released from captivity in Libya and described how he and three of his colleagues—Lynsey Addario, Stephen Farrell and Tyler Hicks—were kidnapped for six days in Libya. They were detained at a military checkpoint.

ANTHONY SHADID: I think they were ready to leave earlier. And in replaying these events over in my head, I wish I had left earlier. You never know when to stop reporting. You never know when you have enough or feel that you have enough. There’s always—you know, I hate to put it this way, but there’s probably always another anecdote or another interview you can do, you know, somehow that’s going to make that story more understandable or more tangible. And, you know, it’s hard to say otherwise. I mean, I clearly made a mistake that day in staying too long. And by the time we got to the checkpoint, it was too late.

AMY GOODMAN: So then, talk about what happened. Who first took you? What happened at the checkpoint?

ANTHONY SHADID: You know, there’s that look. I think, you know, there was a look, I think, in those soldiers’ faces of just fear and rage, as they saw us. And they pulled us out of the car. Like I said, the gun battle started immediately. And when we ran, Tyler ran first, and then I fell on a sandbar and got to my feet, and then I ran after him. And Tyler and Lynsey—or, I’m sorry, Lynsey and Steve followed. And we got behind a kind of a concrete shack, basically, to take cover from the shooting, and the soldiers set upon us there.

They emptied our pockets, you know, slapped us, beat us, and forced us onto our knees. And then I think—you know, again, I’m going to say it was minutes, but it was probably just seconds—they told us to get on our stomachs, to lay flat on our stomachs. And we all resisted. I mean, I think all of us had the idea that if we were going to get on our stomachs, we might be shot or executed. We resisted, and they forced us down. And I remember looking up, hearing a tall—I remember him being a tall, lanky soldier, saying, you know, basically, "Shoot them." And again, I’m sure it was just a matter of seconds, but it did feel like minutes—another soldier looked at him and said, "You can’t shoot them. They’re Americans." And soon after that, they tied our legs and our hands and threw us in two pickup trucks.

And that kind of was the beginning of a 12-hour period where, you know, every—I’d say every couple hours, every three hours, another gun battle, another fight with the rebels, would start. We would pour out of the cars, trying to take cover on the ground. And then, by 2:00 a.m., they put us in a tank, drove us to another location, and that started a kind of a journey of seven or eight hours across—basically across the Libyan coast toward Sirte, where we were held in jail for a night.

AMY GOODMAN: Anthony Shadid and his three New York Times colleagues would go on to be held for five days before being released. Our guest, Nada Bakri, Anthony Shadid’s colleague at the New York Times, and before that at theWashington Post, also covering the uprisings in the Middle East. You’ve been going around the Middle East, as well, so while this is all happening to Anthony, you, too, are reporting, not to mention having your child, Malik.

NADA BAKRI: Excuse me. I was actually just covering Syria from Beirut. I wasn’t traveling at all, because we have a two-year-old son. And, you know, with Anthony on the road, it makes it hard for both of us to leave and not have anyone to stay with our son. So I was just covering Syria from Beirut the whole time. I went there a couple of times, but—you know, and wrote stories, but I didn’t—I didn’t stay there or—it was just two quick day trips.

But, you know, Syria was very interesting to cover, and it’s still very interesting to cover. It has been very hard to cover it, because you’re covering it by remote, and you’re relying on activists’ accounts, activists that you’ve never met or, you know, don’t know what their agendas are. It’s hard to reach citizens or, you know, witnesses. And even when you reach them, you cannot independently confirm or have another account to confirm what they’re saying. So it was really, really hard to cover Syria this past year. We rely a lot on, you know, YouTube videos, because they give you more of an image, a live picture of what is happening there.

AMY GOODMAN: Before Libya, in fact, Anthony wrote this book, House of Stone.

NADA BAKRI: That’s true.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re both deeply rooted in Lebanon.

NADA BAKRI: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: And before that, Anthony was shot in 2002 in the West Bank, in Ramallah, as he described, he believed by Israeli soldiers, and his colleagues, as well, said that they were the only ones in the position to do this, so the Israelis never did an investigation at the time.

NADA BAKRI: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: So he writes this book, House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East. Talk about this ancestral home that he rebuilt for all of you.

NADA BAKRI: He always had an idea to go back to Marjayoun and look for his ancestors’ home, and I think he finally made the trip in January 2006 and looked for the house. And he stayed in the town for about a month. And I think it was then when he had this idea of moving to the town for a year, taking a leave from hisWashington Post job as the foreign correspondent in the Middle East and just rebuilding the house. And he did, the following year. He went on book leave, moved to Marjayoun, rented a small apartment.

AMY GOODMAN: This is when you were just coming to know him?

NADA BAKRI: Yes, yes. Moved to Marjayoun, rented a small apartment, and, you know, hired engineers and workers and builders, and started rebuilding the house. And he was just—I think it must have been the happiest year of his life. He was actually involved in the smallest details of building, from laying tiles on the ground to planting trees in the garden and, you know, doing all the gardening works, to painting, the carpentry. Every little detail, he was involved in. And, you know, as the house was getting finished, he was just—he grew more and more fond of the house. He just loved this house so much. It was, for him, something that he had created, and created from imagination. In his imagination, it was where his family came from, where it all began. And sadly for him, it’s where it ended.

JUAN GONZALEZ: He also talks in the book about some of the conflicts he had with the people in the town and their sense that he was not appreciative of the town’s history.

NADA BAKRI: Mm-hmm.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Could you talk about that reconnection to history and to the importance of the town that he came through in the process of rebuilding the house?

NADA BAKRI: You know, in the beginning, it was just a disaster. He was fighting left and right with everybody who was working in his house. And then, you know, as he understood more how people worked or how builders worked and workers worked, he appreciated what they were doing. And as they understand him more, they appreciated more what he was doing. And, you know—and it became a friendship between them all. They were all devastated when they heard the news that he passed away. And, you know, as he was spending time with them, he learned some much about his ancestors. He learned so much about the town’s traditions and history and, you know, legacy and just the simple ways of life there.

AMY GOODMAN: While Anthony Shadid was working on rebuilding his family’s ancestral home, he recorded a number of home videos about the process and the significance of this home.

ANTHONY SHADID: You know, it’s funny. When you walk through this house sometimes—and I did this a couple of weeks ago—you ask yourself that same question: you know, what is the—you know, what is the meaning of the house? What does the house mean? I remember looking at these stones on those arches. And there’s something about the stones, I think, that’s very evocative. The stone itself, it’s almost like a repository in a way, a repository of history, not necessarily tradition or culture, but a repository, in the sense that it’s borne witness to so much, both lives and events. And I think every time I look at this stone, at the size of it, you know, at how steadfast it is, in a way, it reminds me of that, that sense of it being a repository, the sense of it being a witness. And I think that’s what—I think that’s what it evokes in and of itself, and it also evokes that altogether as a building, as a structure.

JUAN GONZALEZ: We want to play more of Anthony Shadid’s video recorded while he’s rebuilding his family’s home in Lebanon. Here’s another clip.

ANTHONY SHADID: I think the notion why this, I think—how it has become important, in a way, is, I think, just how it represents an older Levant, an older Middle East. And we’re losing that, that older Middle East, you know, a Middle East that—you know, it’s, in some ways, nostalgia, but I think, nevertheless, it represented a certain tolerance, a certain secularism, a certain kind of liberal notion, a respect of diversity. And we are losing that these days, and especially in Lebanon. I think in southern Lebanon—I mean, you know, let’s face it: this town is dying. And with the death of the town is a loss of some of the diversity that southern Lebanon used to represent. You know, this house—you know, at one level, this house is a stand against loss. It’s a stand against that kind of loss. And it’s a futile gesture, I’m sure. It’s so small, it’s insignificant. But, you know, I think this tile—this tile represents an older notion of the Levant, the Middle East, that by putting it in this house, you know, I keep a part of that older Middle East, I keep a part of that older Levant alive. And, you know, if we have this notion or this idea that the house is living, you know, here’s something that brings even more life to it.

AMY GOODMAN: After the renovations were complete, Anthony Shadid recorded this video talking about his relationship with the village of Marjayoun.

ANTHONY SHADID: You know, what I realize as I end this year here, and as I try to make sense of it, that I don’t have a very deep connection to the town itself, to Jedeidet Marjayoun, this name that was always kind of—kind of expressed as an idea rather than a place, you know, among the family. I think I realize I have a connection to my friends here, to this house, that, in a way, I have an imaginary Jedeida, an imaginary town, and this town is what I’ve created out of it, or the things that I’ve come into contact that represent the town to me. And there’s something nice about that, I think, you know? That, you know, let’s say Jedeida dies in 20 or 30 years. I’m still going to have my own Jedeida, and that’s the house, the friends, the views, the history itself, and what this house has become—recreated, reinvented, renovated. And I think that Jedeida is going to last forever. Even after I leave, I’ll be able to take that Jedeida with me.

AMY GOODMAN: Anthony Shadid, the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent and now—was with the New York Times, rebuilding his family’s home in Marjayoun. Nada Bakri, also a New York Times correspondent, with us, the widow of Anthony Shadid. Who owned the home? Tell us about the research. And I know how hard this is for you, especially because this was your refuge, as well.

NADA BAKRI: It’s actually owned by a Anthony’s great-grandfather and all his family, so it’s Isber Samara and all his descendants. So, I don’t know how many exactly, but like Anthony’s aunts and uncles and cousins and—

AMY GOODMAN: In one of the videos, he describes his great-grandmother scrubbing the floors, shining the floors, and the marriage of her first son and what would that mean for the floors.

NADA BAKRI: Yeah, Anthony was the same way, too. We would get there. The house would already have been cleaned, but it was never good enough for him, because he loved the house so much. So he would get on the floor and start scrubbing. He would, you know, wipe the walls, the furniture, the kitchen counter, everything. He just obsessed about every little detail about the house, because he loved it so much. And then, when someone told him the story about his grandmother only thinking about how the dance was going to hurt her floor, it just all made sense, because he was just like her.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And this book, as you had said during the break, that it was actually written and completed several years ago and sort of laid around for a while, what—the story of the book itself, and its finally coming out?

NADA BAKRI: I think they—they had originally planned to publish it last year, and then—I don’t—I can’t remember all the details right now, but then they decided to move the publication date or to postpone the publication date until this spring. And then, of course, after he passed away, they moved it by a month. But it was—he finished it a couple of years ago and then started editing like two years ago.

AMY GOODMAN: Is there a few paragraphs of the book, House of Stone, that you would like to read?

NADA BAKRI: Anthony wrote the epilogue after he—last September. He had already gone through Libya. And it—you know, after he was kidnapped in Libya and released. And that had a tremendous effect on him. It just, you know—so he wrote this epilogue after, and he was very happy with it. And so, I’m going to read two paragraphs from it.

“When they arrived in Marjayoun, the forefathers of Isber Samara carried with them the nomadic ways of the Houran and its Bedouin residents. Their possessions were few, but each family was said to have brought the wooden mihbaj, to prepare their coffee, and the iron saj, to bake their bread. The very sound of grinding coffee was considered an invitation to anyone and everyone to come. Stay, it suggested.Seek shelter. I thought of this as I returned to Marjayoun; I thought of what was lost and what might, somehow, return. I envisioned desert wanderers of different faiths and creeds offering aid and succor to each other as they crossed the steppe. I recalled the silent respect of the women in Tyre mourning in black before eighty-six numbered coffins, destined for a single grave. I remembered Tahrir Square and what had once more, for a moment, been imagined.

“As I had so often, I walked beside Isber’s house of stone, passing the two most ancient olive trees, still standing from the day my grandmother had said goodbye. I thought of my daughter, soon to arrive, walking up the steps from which her great-grandmother had departed, waiting to hear Raeefa’s songs. In my mind’s eye I saw Laila, suddenly grown, beside these trees and repeating the Arabic words that I would one day teach her, words that would take her back to Isber’s world, where the Litani River runs, over Marjayoun, over what was once our land.

"This is bayt. This is what we imagine."

And it was Anthony’s bayt.

AMY GOODMAN: Nada Bakri, reading the epilogue of House of Stone, Anthony Shadid’s book that was just published—really, their book. "The lost Middle East" that he talks about, that you both shared, that you both covered and reported on, can you talk more about this?

NADA BAKRI: You know, Anthony was really interested or fascinated by the Middle East of, you know, a hundred years ago, the cosmopolitanism of that era, when Marjayoun was a live town. It was an intersection. It was a kind of a center that brought people from, you know, all around it—people from Syria, people from Israel and Palestine, people from Lebanon—regardless of faith, of origins, of anything, of class. He was interested in that Middle East a lot. And, you know, when he moved there in the 1990s, early 1990s, it was not the Middle East that he had read about so much in books and he had heard about so much. You know, it was a place of violence and wars and conflicts and, you know, deaths and bloodshed. And so, he talks a lot about this lost Middle East and the longing for a Middle East that was once or a Middle East that he had imagined would be there.

AMY GOODMAN: In the last video that we saw of Anthony, in those last days before he died, he was wearing the scarf, the kafiya.

NADA BAKRI: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: Is that the scarf that you’re wearing right now?

NADA BAKRI: That is the scarf. He was wearing it when he died, as they were hiking back to Turkey. And Tyler said that he was covering his face with it. And then, after he died, Tyler brought it back to me, and I’ve been wearing it since.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And your sense, as you’re talking about his desire to learn and understand the old Middle East, that—the changes now and what he was able to—so lucky to be able to witness and record, and your sense of the new Middle East that’s arising out of all of this popular upsurge of the last several—over the last couple of years?

NADA BAKRI: You know, I—yeah, I think he was very—felt very lucky to be witnessing this change, but also knew that it was going to be years before we could actually realize what the new order was going to be. You know, with so many moving parts and so many uncertainties still out there in the Middle East—in Syria, in Egypt, in Libya, really everywhere—it was not clear what kind of Middle East it was going to be. But he was really looking forward to, you know, witnessing that, too.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Nada, you are a reporter.

NADA BAKRI: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: You are a mother.

NADA BAKRI: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re now a widow. What are your plans now? You’re back in the United States.

NADA BAKRI: Right. I can talk about my immediate plans. I’m just—you know, I promised Anthony that I would help him promote the book once it’s published, so this is my very immediate plan. And then, of course, I have my son. I’m going to be taking care of him. There’s, you know, so many changes in his life. But then I don’t know what I’m going to do after this. I’m just not sure if I’m going to go back to work the way I worked before. I don’t know if I can still cover Syria. You know, I’m just—I have so many different feelings, and I just have to come to have—to sort them all out and figure out what I want to do.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re on leave from New York Times now?

NADA BAKRI: For now, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think you’ll continue to report? Your thoughts about reporting now?

NADA BAKRI: Right now I can’t imagine myself reporting or writing any story. I mean, right now, today or tomorrow, if you tell me, "Can you do a story tomorrow?" I would not be able to. But who knows?

AMY GOODMAN: How do you feel about journalism?

NADA BAKRI: I feel like when you give so much to something, not just journalism, but in general, they should—you know, it should be more generous to you. And, you know, it wasn’t this case for Anthony. He gave so much to journalism, and it wasn’t as generous as it should have been with him.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Nada Bakri, you’re very brave to come on now, so soon after Anthony’s death, three weeks ago today. Nada Bakri, a New York Timescorrespondent, is here talking about Anthony’s, well, now last book, House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East, that they both shared. Thanks so much, Nada.

NADA BAKRI: Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.

AMY GOODMAN: And all the best to you and your family.

NADA BAKRI: Thank you. Thanks for having me.